


Cryptography of the Leaves

by Geonn



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alien Character(s), Alien Cultural Differences, Alien Culture, Alien Mythology/Religion, Alien Sex, Attempted Rape/Non-Con, Bechdel Test Pass, Books, Bookstores, Card Games, Depression, F/F, Female Friendship, Reading Aloud, Romance, Science Fiction, Shower Sex, Writing
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-18
Updated: 2013-08-12
Packaged: 2017-12-20 15:21:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 38,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/888796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Geonn/pseuds/Geonn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two alien women struggle to make a living on a world caught in the crosshairs of an intergalactic war waging on their doorstep.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Prologue**  
They were called ‘books.’ Ananais Stone laughed the first time she saw one, a thin curiosity her father brought back from the salvage. He also brought more exciting curiosities for her and her sisters - dolls in human shapes and animals from the new planet - so it was nearly bedtime before she remembered it. She put aside the soft and pliable toy (a bear, with an ovoid body and a long snout and little black beady eyes) to pick up the book. 

The shell was rough but cool under her palm. She set the bear up against her headboard and opened the front part of the shell. She flipped a few of the flat leaves to run her fingers over the shapes inked onto them. The markings were bizarre and unfamiliar, so she didn’t realize she held the book upside down until she got to a picture. She wasn’t embarrassed as she flipped the book to the ride side; she was simply learning. 

The picture showed a human being with very long and slender limbs and a bulbous forehead bent forward at the waist with one arm extended toward another human. The other human was lying supine on a flat surface with cloth drawn up over his body, and she realized it was a bed much like her own. How odd to see something so familiar in such an alien setting! She held the book closer to her face. The standing person was the only one drawn clear enough to have details. His head was round like a stone and his nose was long and beaklike. His face was smooth and hairless, showing he was an adult. The body in bed was cast in shadow, but one wide eye was left white indicating it was open and staring.

Ananais reached up and touched the russet strands of her own cheeks. The Tauzetti had large eyes like the supine man, round like moons but black like the sky. Their faces were covered with a fine fur that some older people cut into aesthetic designs. She wasn’t allowed, like most children, to cut hers until she finished with schooling. She wet her lips with her tongue and turned the page, trying to figure out where the story began. She ran her fingers up the blocks of black marks until she reached a row that was set off and much darker.

A vertical line with a bar across the top. T. Three of them: T T T, with other marks in between. The last big letter was two verticals connected at the middle. H. T T T H. She saw others T and another H elsewhere in the code. She narrowed her eyes and leaned closer to the book as if identifying the shapes would help her discern their meanings.

Words made sounds. The symbols indicated what the sound should be, and each block was separated into a language she had only heard spoken on rare occasions when her father sent back messages on Earth Tech. “Transmission in Progress. Please Stand By.” That she knew. And when she had to enter her information: “Please Enter Your Haven ID and Password.” These messages appeared on the screen and she had absorbed them subconsciously.

So she sounded it out: “Tuh. Tuh. Tuh. Hahh.” The first word was a TH together. “Tuh-hahh. Te...” Long and thin. Long and thin. Like in “please,” the long and thin made “lah.”

After an hour of feverishly piecing together nonsense sounds, she focused again on the large black marks. She skipped the marks she didn’t know what they sounded like and gave a little breathy cough in their place. “Tuh hah... tuh ah ell ell. Tuh-ah-ell-ah. Huh-ah-ah-ar-tuh.”

The traced the lines of the mysterious phrase. THE TELL TALE HEART. Just four small blocks of sounds. As she strained to figure out what the A and the R sounded like, she flipped through the rest of the book to examine the other pictures. The stuffed toy her father had brought back was forgotten, and she focused instead on the cryptography of the leaves. 

How could she waste time on a toy when there was so much waiting to be discovered in the book?

 **I**  
“True!” Ananias said. “Nervous, very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad?”

The book in her hands was but a prop; she had the entire text of the tale memorized by now. The little ones crowded around her, furry faces tilted up to listen to the story. She was always particularly animated when telling a story, when she could see their little faces giving away their excitement. She transported them all to the dark bedchamber of the old man with the “hideous” eye. She translated that section slightly when she read it. Many elderly Tauzetti had eyes like the one Edgarallan Poe described and would be insulted to hear them described as disgusting. Instead she left it up to their fertile little imaginations to fill in the blanks.

“The Tell-Tale Heart” was just one of many stories Ananais had memorized once she had learned to read the English. Once her father recognized where her interests were, he began bringing her more salvage. Sometimes the whole book was a single story, and it took her a year or more to make it through. Other times were quicker. She soon learned to identify words by sight and that sped up the process. Sometimes her father brought her odd books that she couldn’t even begin to decipher. They used the same marks but very few of the letters were used in the right way. Some had unusual marks over them that she’d never seen before. Did they indicate a change in pronunciation? Or did the marks have some other esoteric meaning that she couldn’t hope to understand without a native speaker?

When she asked her father he looked at the pages and apologized. “Earth people have different languages depending on where they live. I must have gotten a book from the wrong place.”

She didn’t mind. Usually even those books had pictures, and she could interpret her own story based on the pictures. She liked Sherlock Holmes and his partner Watson. She enjoyed Poe, although he could be a bit dreary for her tastes. Through these tales she created her own ideas of what the Earth planet must have been like. She imagined a vast craggy shoreline that was assaulted by crashing waves day and night. Near the cities were docks where boats brought supplies from far away, and in the country the shore was home to mysterious castles that housed monstrous men and women who had lost their senses.

Earth was a dark and frightening place full of monsters and madmen and women who wailed and gnashed their teeth. It was a horrific world of death and mystery, and she was grateful Tauzi didn’t have any more contact with them than absolutely necessary.

But the children certainly enjoyed hearing tales of the anarchical planet. She watched their faces as she mimed reading from the page, remembering her own gasps of horror and wonder when she read the stories for the first time. She hadn’t had red hair on her face for nearly twelve years, the roots shorn away in a family ritual that exposed pink cheeks and a smooth forehead. Her eyes were smaller now, having adjusted to her adult face, but she could still widen them when she reached the spooky parts of the story.

The story time took place in the front of her shop. Long ago she spent her Seeking Years hunched over a reading tablet to transcribe the Earth stories into the Tau language. She altered the locales and descriptions so the situations would make sense to Tauzetti audiences. Each story maintained the original creator’s information even if she didn’t understand exactly what it meant. Names like Poe, Dickens, Austen, and Wilde were transcribed on the front page so no one could miss the fact Ananais had merely copied the works rather than writing them herself.

Not that anyone would believe she had written them all on her own. No one was so prolific to fill the shelves of a small shop with story drives, no one had such a wild and varied imagination to span humorous tales as well as dark crime stories, epic works that focus on both urban and rural settings and characters that ran the entire gamut. She found herself amazed at how similar humans were to Tauzetti, and at the same time their brutality, savagery, and sheer violence toward each other was distinctly un-Tauzi in the extreme.

But oh! How she loved the tales and their dialogue. Sometimes it broke her heart to take out something because her peers would find it confusing. She changed commonly-referenced places like London and New York to Tauzi cities like Elchif and Tiirnu. Professions that didn’t exist on Tauzi had to be changed in exchange for clarity, and sometimes it was nearly impossible to preserve the story intact when she was forced to make such jarring changes. She doubted anyone who knew the originals would ever question her theft of their works, but she felt the distinction was necessary. If she ever began to write her own tales, as she dreamed she would one day, she didn’t want the audience to be confused.

She closed her shop when the first sun touched the horizon and began the long walk home. Her shop was located in the Commerce ring of the Grand Tower, a wide promenade that extended out from the body of the edifice to look out over the surrounding city. The Grand Tower rose from the center of the city and stretched high enough to see the walls that formed their perimeter. As she rode the sinking platform down to the ground, she turned to watch the ships swooping in for a landing.

They were shiny and black, curved at the top and flat at the bottom so they looked like one of her fingernails had snapped off, grown in size, and gone off for a quick trip. In reality they were transports carrying soldiers from the front lines to the medical facilities on Tauzi. Their planet was neutral, but they offered compassionate services to both sides of the war raging in a nearby system. Her city - Sikaar Kakae, or the City of the Tower - was host to fighters from the Amarim Coalition while the Vyrr forces were given quarter by the fine people of Adyt Bluffs.

She watched as the Amarim transports sat down in various parts of the city, a few of them swinging toward the Grand Tower to dock on the Celebration and Enjoyment Rings. She wished she had known they were being granted leave; she would have kept the store open longer in case anyone was interested in books from the faraway Earth.

On the streets she passed those in casual dress - the linen trousers and lightweight tunics open under the arms to show the bare skin of their sides. She wore the wrapped blue gown of a merchant that draped her waist and left her legs exposed so her stride wasn’t impeded. She wore a purple-and-red skirt slit up the side to reveal her muscular thighs as she walked.

She arrived home as the second sun, the smaller of the two, began to sink and cast their part of the world into night. The moon hung heavy in the sky, twice as large as the two suns combined, and its light made the streets and buildings appear grey. The filament over Ananais’ eyes slid into place to mute the glow. She lived in one segment of a large block structure, a honeycomb of rooms that was separated from its identical neighbors by a series of elevated walkways. She lived on the third level three sections back, and the third finger of her right hand provided the pad with her identity.

Ananais undressed and hung her uniform on the wooden rack. In the morning a girl in a white gown would come and take it to be laundered. She changed into her own casual attire, clothing that matched the people she had seen on the street, and ran her dark fingernails through her hair as she went to see what kind of food she had on hand.

As she passed through the common space, she glanced toward the large window that gave her a view of the neighboring building. The light was on in the apartment across the way so she changed direction, walked toward it and rested her hands on the windowsill. A wooden platform stretched between their windows and she waited until she saw movement before she pushed up the glass and leaned out. 

“Constance!”

After a few seconds Constance Kaasyn appeared in the window. She smiled, waved, and pushed up her window as well. “I bought a new bottle of Sykaa wine. Do you have the flatwheat?”

“I’ll get the bag.”

Constance nodded and ducked out of sight while Ananais went to the cabinet for their snack. They had met by accident one evening when the temperature was hot enough that they both opened their windows. They sought refuge on their respective sills and began to talk, then began to pass things back and forth. Ananais tossed dried figs into Constance’s apartment, while Constance devised a padded parachute invention to throw wine to Ananais. In the end they decided it would be much easier to just extend a small platform between the two apartments, and they hired someone to build it.

She returned to the balcony at the same time as Constance, and they crawled out into the cooling night air to take their seats. Constance was Meallara, a foreigner, and she spoke Tau with a lilting and melodic accent. Where Ananais had crimson skin with dark eyes and red hair, Constance was pale blue-gray with black hair streaked with white. She raised her bottle of wine and Ananais held up the flatwheat as she settled back in her chair. Constance poured them both a drink and tapped the side of her glass against Ananais’. 

“T’syy.”

“T’syy,” Ananais repeated as the echo from their glasses resonated. They each took a sip and Ananais leaned back to put her feet up on the safety rail. The view wasn’t as impressive as it was from the Grand Tower, but she could see all the way to the wall straight ahead, and to either side she had a view of the rich district. She liked to watch their transports rise and fall, loved the halo of blue, purple, mauve, and taupe light that spilled out from underneath them. She let the crushed berries sit on her tongue for a long moment before she swallowed and sighed.

“Delicious. Thank you for sharing.”

“There is none other I would prefer to share with. Thank you for the flatwheat.” She had taken one of the large doughy discs out of the bag. She folded it into a tube and tilted her glass to moisten the wheat with her wine. She let the juice soak for a moment, then folded it again and took a bite. “Mm.” She rolled her eyes back in her head and rocked from side to side as she chewed. “Exquisite. Thank you, An.”

“It is my pleasure.” She licked the droplets from her lips. “How was your day?”

Constance jutted out her chin and closed her eyes, rocking her shoulders back in a ‘good-and-bad’ gesture. “I was grateful my shift ended before the soldiers started showing up. I heard the first transports start to land and turned in my smock before my manager could ask me to stick around.”

“Shame you’ll miss out on their gratuities, though.”

“Small price to pay.” Constance took another bite of her soaked flatwheat and looked out over the city. “I don’t like serving the Amarim soldiers. They stick of sweat and grease. Their eyes have seen violence and when they meet my gaze I can feel it pressing against me.”

Ananais reached out and touched her friend’s hand. “I know, sweet. Let the berries soothe your mind, yes?”

“Yes. But today it was not so bad. Tomorrow may be, if these soldiers don’t head back to their war before I’m due back at the café.”

“If they do not, then I will be here tomorrow night, and we will share more of your delicious wine.”

Constance laughed and raised her glass. “T’syy!” Ananais toasted her again and they both took a drink. When she lowered her glass she was smiling, and she rested her head against the pillowed cushion of her seat. The night was falling and through the gathering clouds they could see a thick smattering of starlight. Some of the pinprick glows were actually satellites and monitoring stations where forces from both Amarim and Vyrr monitored their forces on the ground to ensure the neutrality was respected.

Elsewhere in the city bells were chiming to announce Amarim soldiers were on the ground. Security vessels rose and began their spiraling routes to ensure no demonstrators or war protestors would molest the soldiers on their leisure times. The Amarim operated on their own timeframe, so occasionally they would arrive in the dead of night and other times they showed up when the suns were doing their daily pirouette in the sky. There was no way for those on the ground the predict their arrival; the natives could only watch for the transports descending like fireballs streaking through the atmosphere and hope they were prepared for the influx of alien soldiers looking for food and entertainment.

It could be exhausting, but there was a reason Tauzetti was known as Haven to outsiders. If they were forced to occasionally host violent and raucous men in exchange for keeping the violence away from their system, they were willing to put up with a little inconvenience from time to time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter includes a scene of attempted rape.

Constance woke the next morning with a mild echo of the wine throbbing at the base of her skull. She kept her eyes closed as she walked slowly into the kitchen, squinting to smash a handful of berries with her mortar and pestle. The resulting mulch was poured onto a kez leaf, which she rolled tightly. She walked to the window to eat her cure, the pain subsiding as she countered the pain-inducing spirits with the essence of the berries. 

Across their joined balcony she could see into Ananais’ apartment. The main room was still dark, which was unsurprising as they’d sat out under the stars until the moon was directly overhead. Constance was tired as well, but she had much to do before she was due at work. She finished her kez leaf and dipped her small finger into the excess berry juice. She painted her bottom lip with the tincture and dressed for the day in her standard uniform. She covered her star-streaked hair with a maroon kerchief that she tied at the base of her neck, slung her bag over her shoulder, and headed out.

Her first stop was the larder. Three men were ahead of her in line so she read her tablet as she waited, her chit card at the ready. When she reached the console she scanned her card, confirmed her money was available, and scrolled through the menus poking buttons to add items to her order. She bought more flatwheat and kez leaves, since it was Ananais’ turn to bring the wine for their next sundowner. She skimmed through the available snacks, wishing that del’ah berries were in season and settling for rosoet. The meat was delicious, and the leaves could be used for cooking.

The line had started to increase behind her, so she finished her order and set a delivery time when she knew she would be home. With that done she strolled toward the tower. She looked up and attempted to see the Commerce ring where her friend and neighbor worked. The lights were glowing to combat the heavy cloud cover that perpetually hung around the immense spire, a steady golden glow that slid across the skin of ships passing around its orbit. 

She saw only civilian ships, those incapable or too impatient to take the ground-to-point lifts that surrounded the base of the tower. To the business owners that meant it was a good day for Commerce, for the government offices it meant long lines stretching like a labyrinth of breathing and irritated walls waiting to air their grievances. 

To her, it meant only that the military transports were still grounded and she would most likely have to suffer Amarim soldiers when she went in to work that afternoon.

As if cued by the darkening of her thoughts, someone passing by glanced at her face and quickly looked away. Her skin was blue where the majority of pedestrians on the street were crimson, pale pink, or pale orange. She tried to make herself less obvious by wearing clothing that was tinted red, her black-and-white hair covered with a red kerchief, but there was no hiding her face. She had tried makeup but the resulting mixture of red and blue made her look like a long-dead Tauzetti corpse. She decided the recoils and averted eyes were preferable to screaming children. She resisted the urge to pull her kerchief lower on her brow and continued on with her errands. 

Fortunately, what with tourists and soldiers on leave, merchants couldn’t afford to hire xenophobic clerks. She was treated with respect at every shop she frequented, even if the customers might give her wide berth when they were on the same aisle. It was the cost of living on Tauzetti, the price she had known when she chose to remain living there after she was freed. She may have the appearance of an outsider but Tauzi was the only world she knew. Meallar was a beautiful world and she had seen ‘graphs and slides of it. But she would feel as alien there as she looked on the streets of Tauzi.

She was fluent in Tau, she understood their government and laws, and she could deal with a few awkward encounters in exchange for that comfort.

Having Ananais in her life helped. One kind word, one evening spent under the stars, was enough to counter all the dirty and distrustful looks she received in public. Ananais looked past skin color and saw a friend. Constance was grateful for that kindness.

She browsed in a clothing shop, donning her qeque gloves so she wouldn’t come in direct contact with any of the fabrics. Clerks were friendly to a Meallara customer, but they drew the line at letting her touch cloth she didn’t intend to buy. Some Tauzetti were skittish about the oils in Meallara skin. It was a complete myth, but Meallara sweat did have a distinctly sweeter taste than Tauzetti - something she knew from experience - so she acquiesced to the posted request next to the door of the shop. Qeque skin would prevent her from leaving prints on the cloth, but it was thin enough that she could still feel the texture of the clothes between her fingers.

Constance shopped for a bit, choosing a pair of light red slacks and a matching top. She chose a few more kerchiefs from the bin near the front of the store, and purchased an ivory-and-green vest for Ananais, knowing the colors would look good on her. She applied the items to her chit card and returned home to fold them away. She carefully folded Ananais’ gift and placed it on the table next to the window so she could give it the next time they were together.

Her groceries arrived when she requested, and she had time to put them away before she left for work. She made certain her uniform wasn’t dirty or disheveled, traded her maroon kerchief for one that bore the colors of her workplace, and she shut off her apartment’s central systems - lights and temperature control and the speakers that filters soft music into her home during the day - and descended back to the street level.

She worked as a server at Caesura, an ale-and-meals house where people could stop, sit, and relax for a while before getting back to their lives. The House also offered haze masks, although they were technically only borderline legal. Her boss had a handshake-wink agreement with local drug enforcement to look the other way. 

Nine tables that could seat from one to six customers filled the main space of the House, with a serving bar along the back wall where customers could place their orders. Constance was a server and wore a low-slung satchel against her hip where she could keep napkins, straws, stirrers, and whatever else a customer might require. She washed her hands in the back sink and placed her thumb against the reader until it acknowledged she was on duty. Only then did she allow herself to scan the crowd to see what she had to deal with.

As she had predicted the night before, four of the nine tables were occupied by Amarim soldiers on permissive leave. They wore the lightweight and visually drab one-piece suits of off-duty military officers, open at the collar to reveal their ribbed undershirts. The Amarim forces were drafted from each of the seven worlds that occupied the Rim, and she knew each world had its own unique culture, but they all tended to look alike to her. Their skin was a pale green, their eyes black with red irises. It hurt her to make eye contact with them for very long; the colors made her feel queasy. 

And while it was irritating to be shunned and ignored by xenophobes, Amarim natives were even worse. They were seven different races who happened to be physically similar to one another, so centuries ago they had learned how to accept differences in people. The drafted soldiers were young enough that permissive leave might be their first time away from home, and they found themselves endlessly fascinated by a blue-skinned Meallara.

With her arrival, her coworker Olin was free to go home. She took off her satchel and placed her thumb on the scanner to end her shift and have the appropriate amount of chits transferred to her account.

Constance looked out at the soldiers and then turned back to Olin. “How bad are they?”

“Sorry,” Olin said. “You see all the empty glasses on their table? They kept ordering so I would come over and they could talk about my cheery red skin.”

“Chee-ree?” Constance asked.

“Apparently a fruit from Earth. Something in the manner they said it made me feel filthy. I am sorry to leave you to them.”

Constance sighed. “I can cope. Have a good evening, Ol.”

Olin nodded and slipped through the back, while Constance gathered a carrying case and a notepad with which she could take their orders. Only one of the soldiers saw her approach to the table, and he straightened in his seat and ran his eyes up and down her body before settling on her blue-black bottom lip, still painted with the berries from her breakfast.

“Bulik, you ever had a blue piece?”

The man he spoke to looked up and leaned back so he could take in the sight of her. “ _Hur rhaid._ What did you come out of, girl-girl?”

“I’ll be taking over your service, gentlemen,” she said, ignoring the obscenity and the question both. “Olin’s shift was over. Can I get you anything else from the bar?”

“What’s your name?” the first soldier asked.

“I am Constance. If you don’t need anything--”

Bulik tilted his head to watch her hips as she placed the empty glasses from the table into her satchel. “Oh, we need something. Just not from the bar.” He wet his lips with a thick black tongue. “Maybe you’ll be a little bit nicer than Olin. Maybe we leave a higher gratuity if you’re nicer to us.”

“The gratuity will be split between me and Olin, with her receiving the lion’s share.” _Since she had to deal with you swine longer than I will._ “I’ll come back to check on you in a few minutes.”

She turned to walk away, but she heard the scrape of a chair that told her one of the men was following her. She refused to look back, refused to acknowledge the soldier. She unloaded the dirty glasses and left them on the shelf where the sudsman would retrieve them for washing. The soldier’s shadow eclipsed hers on the wall, and she finally peered over her shoulder. It was one of the men who had remained quiet while she was at the table. His friends were all watching, smiling and speaking quietly amongst themselves as they waited for something to happen.

“Was there something you needed?”

“You’re Meallara.”

She nodded slowly. “I am.”

“Your hair. Is it solid or star-streak?”

She didn’t like answering that question. Meallara hair was either black, white, or streaked. According to urban legend and folklore, star-streaked women tended to have a greater number of sexual partners. It was one reason she preferred to wear kerchiefs in public. She set her lips in a grim line and glared up into the customer’s nauseating eyes. 

“I don’t see how that fact is pertinent.”

“I could always find out myself.” He reached for her kerchief and she brought both hands up to stop him. She realized too late that it was a ruse. His other hand had gripped the outside thigh of her linen trousers and hauled them down, and she realized he intended to see the color of the hair between her legs. She bent at the waist in a futile attempt to keep from being seen, and the quiet soldier used her new position to his advantage. He spun her around, folding her over the edge of the table where she’d left the mugs for the sudsman, and pressed against the curve of her rear end.

A glass shattered against the attacking soldier’s head and he stumbled back with pinwheeling arms. The sudsman, a former mercenary named Moises who had done jobs for both Amarim and Vyrr, hurtled through the kitchen door before the pieces of glassware even hit the ground. Moises was nearly ninety years old and weighed three-hundred pounds of wiry muscle. He swung his arm from the floor up, planting his fist between the soldier’s legs as his other hand closed around the front of his one-suit. The soldier folded in half like Moises had snapped a towel, his feet leaving the floor as the elderly Tauzetti sudsman lifted him into the air and brought him down hard on the bar. Constance tugged her pants back up and secured the belt, shaking as she watched Moises roughly search the soldier’s pockets.

“Seven!” the soldier gasped as Moises hauled out a small silver card with three holes punched in the bottom. “Please, seven, just seven.”

Moises tugged the soldier off the bar, his friends standing helpless by the table as the barrel-chested man stalked over to the scanner. He jammed the soldier’s card into the slot, pulled down the lever, and held it until the light flashed red.

“No!” the soldier got up but remained hunched over, holding his wounded self as he stared at the empty card Moises dropped into a bin behind the bar.

Bulik was furious, but knew better than to approach the sudsman. “He needed seven to get back to the transport, you old burn!”

Moises glared at the soldiers, daring one of them to make a move. He kept his hands balled at his sides, waiting for one of them to make a move. Finally the man who had asked Bulik about getting a blue piece finally relaxed his posture. “Let’s go.”

“Lat,” Bulik started to say, but his superior cut him off with a stern look and he shut up. The injured soldier kept his hand over his crotch as he shuffled forward. They were almost to the door before Moises spoke.

“You have a debt to be paid.”

The soldiers stopped and looked back. Every other Amarim soldier in the room remained silent and still, waiting to see how the moment played out. Constance tried desperately to fade into the back corner of the room, to be unseen. The highest-ranking soldier took out his chit card and carried it to Moises. He placed it in the slot and scanned the label. “You say you need seven to get home?”

The soldier’s eyes widened in fury, and Constance wondered just how much was about to get drained from his account. The soldier turned and looked at the man who had attacked Constance. The funds would be coming out of his hide, one way or another.

“That’s right,” he finally said.

Moises rang up the sale, along with what was sure to be a hefty gratuity, and handed the card back to him. “I left you fourteen. Get your _phassi’nr_ friend off my planet.”

The troublesome soldiers left, and the others focused their attention on the tables in front of them. Moises made his way over to her, the fury draining from his face. The color dimmed in his cheeks and he touched her arm.

“Are you okay?”

“No harm done. I’m fine. You didn’t have to drain both their cards.”

“It wasn’t for their detriment, it was so the others here would see what happens.” He scanned the room. “You have tables waiting.”

She nodded and kissed the white tuft of hair on top of his head. “Thank you, Moises.”

He waved her off and shuffled around her to return to the kitchen. Constance tugged her pants to make sure they would stay up, adjusted her tunic, and went to continue her rounds. The other soldiers had indeed learned their lessons. She only had to endure a pat on her rear end, and one Amarim soldier stroking her knee. She didn’t mind that, although she found it slightly odd. Knees were fetishized in the Amarim society, but it did her no harm to let a man far from home stroke hers. It was better than the alternative, and it helped bump up her gratuities.

She worked for nine hours, still ferrying drinks to tables from the bar long after the suns passed the horizon. The soldiers quickly cleared out and made room for locals to take their place. Constance was forced to wear gloves when handling their drinks, an indignity she was willing to bear in exchange for a calm evening. When she scanned the thumb at the end of her shift, her eyes widened when she saw how many chits had been placed in her account. It was nearly a week’s pay, and it would provide her with a very nice installment to her savings. She removed her satchel and washed her hands before handing off duties to the next waitress who came in after her.

Constance left Caesura and reached up to adjust her kerchief. She scanned the street to make sure her attacker had indeed left, then tilted her head up to watch the sky. The clouds had cleared out to reveal a plethora of stars, and she watched as the last remaining clamshell ships spiraled upward into the atmosphere. The military leave was over, and the soldiers were returning to their war. Normally Constance didn’t care about the fighting, didn’t think one way or the other about which side was right or wrong, but tonight she hoped a certain Amarim soldier met his doom by a Vyrrian bladet’. She watched until the last transport was out of sight and then began to walk. She hoped there would be flatwheat and rosoet to share with her friend.

When Ananais asked, as she always did, how her day was, Constance would tell her it was perfectly fine. But if pressed, she wouldn’t offer any details.


	3. Chapter 3

Ananais never knew what would make it a bad day. They came unexpectedly like cool breezes on a summer day, or like her tree full of storms. She had once gone for a walk after a rainstorm when the suns came out, warming the ground while the air was still cool. She passed under a tree thick with leaves and was startled when she was instantly drenched by a downpour. She looked up, the droplets splattering on her cheeks and forehead. The rain had been caught in the branches, soaked and cupped by the leaves, and even an hour after the storm clouds passed they were still sprinkling down. She had stood there for a long moment, her clothes becoming heavy with the belated rain, and she watched as everyone else passed on oblivious in the suns shine.

Her bad days were like that, and she remained in bed long after she would otherwise have risen. She ate dry rosoet leaves for her breakfast, dressed in her merchant weeds, and settled a low-pulled hat on her brow. She walked quickly through the streets, head down and not bothering to look into the windows she passed even though she had the time to linger and shop.

When she arrived at work she left the window coverings in place and set a sign on the door that said she was closed for sorting and inventory. She left the overhead lights off and relied on the sconces placed on the end of each aisle, using their pale orange glow to skim the spines of her quiet friends. She traced the alien language embedded on their spines and took down one at random. Her father had first brought this story back with the title _El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha_. She had been unable to make heads or tails of the words but she quite enjoyed the pictures of a stick thin man riding a hungry horse through a desolate land, his lance held high while ghosts rule the sky above and behind him.

A few years later her father brought her another book simply called _Don Quixote_. She compared the illustrations and discovered they told the same story, but the new book was in the language she could decipher. She spent months on it, sometimes getting caught up in the tale so that she forgot the translation. She smiled as she opened the book and scanned the English words, then flipped through to look for her favorite illustrations.

She held the book against her chest and carried it to one of the plush armchairs tucked away in a dark corner of the shop. The light wasn’t bright enough to illuminate the page, so from her belt satchel she withdrew her shine. She put it around her neck, the small globe hanging against her chest, and switched it on. The soft blue light fell onto the page, and she curled up to read about the pursuits of the famous gentleman Don Quixote.

Hours later, hunger drove her to find something to eat. She put aside the book and slipped off her shoes before she went into the kitchenette to fix herself a meal. She was tired, though she had done nothing but read all day. She felt weary and small and wanted to go home and hide under her blankets. But if she went home she ran the risk of Constance seeing her light on and insisting on socialization. She adored her friend and their conversations, but there were days when companionship was the last thing on her mind. 

Ananais didn’t remember if her bad days started before or after she started translating books, but she was grateful for the chore to give her something to do. She thrived in the solitude and found an ease with her mind that helped her get through the rest of the days. Now that she was an adult she still needed to hide sometimes, needed the dark and the quiet, in order to cope. She had tried medication, liquids that burned her throat and made her tongue swell, and they helped. But when she realized she could get the same results by simply taking a day for herself, she threw away her remaining bottles and began setting aside one or two days a month to recuperate from socialization.

She closed the shop early, not that it had ever really been open, and took the long route home. The soldiers had ended their permissive leave so the streets were quiet. The tails of her blue merchants’ gown swept and folded around her legs as she walked, and it felt unsettlingly like hands brushing her thighs. She often reached down to smooth out the material, glancing around nervously to see if anyone observed her peculiar behavior.

When she got home she left her lights off, as she had in the store. Through the window she could see lamps lit in Constance’s apartment, so she stayed out of sight as much as possible. Near nightfall she was aware of Constance out on the balcony and wanted to go join her, wanted to push up the window and ask what comestibles she could bring from her pantry, but instead she slid down on the couch, her knees drawn up, and prayed her neighbor wouldn’t knock on the glass or persist for companionship.

Finally when it was full dark, when Ananais was sat in a black apartment for fear of drawing Constance’s attention, her friend got up and went back into her apartment. Ananais felt guilty relief, waiting until she was certain she wouldn’t be discovered hiding like a child. She undressed next to her bed and crawled under the blankets. She watched the lights of passing vessels glowing on her bedroom window, burrowed safe in her bed. Tomorrow would be better. She knew it would. It always was.

#

Constance knew Ananais was home, but she was willing to respect her privacy. Sometimes Ananais suffered paranoia and anxiety, and being by herself helped her cope. Constance was grateful for the silence. She knew that if Ananais came outside she would end up talking about the incident in the bar. She was conflicted. She knew that if she talked about it she would feel better, but she also knew it would require reliving it. Meallara people had superb memory-recall, to the point where they could make themselves re-see the moment in question. A nictitating membrane would close laterally across their eyes and, with their true vision blocked, they would be able to see a hazy remembrance of what had happened before. She didn’t want that. It was still too fresh and reliving it would only deepen the wound.

Instead she closed her eyes and thought about the day she and Ananais met. She was still new to the city, a novice at living alone, and she’d been startled to see the Tauzetti woman across the way leaning out her window. Constance was already wary of the snobbish glares and upturned-noses of her Tauzetti neighbors, but it was much too hot to swelter inside. If the red-faced _creit_ had a problem with her presence then she could be the one to leave.

But Ananais only smiled. Constance nodded a greeting and pressed a wet towel to her forehead. She was willing to enjoy the breeze in silence but Ananais spoke up.

“I find it helps to drape the towel over the top of your head so that it catches the breeze. The cooler air of the wet towel lowers the temperature of the breeze around your neck.”

Constance looked at her towel, unfolded it, and draped it as Ananais suggested. Almost immediately the air seemed two degrees cooler, and she closed her eyes blissfully. 

“That is remarkable. Thank you very much.”

“My pleasure.” The distance was much too great for them to greet each other by touching cheeks, but Ananais dragged the tip of her middle finger along the line of her jaw from earlobe to chin. It was a Tauzi greeting, but Constance mimicked it out of politeness. They exchanged their names and told each other what they did for a living. Constance’s relief at having a non-xenophobic neighbor was so great that she didn’t realize the suns had set until it was almost too dark to see each other. Her towel had also gone dry, so she thanked Ananais for a lovely conversation and straightened up with her hands on the sill.

“This was lovely. I can’t remember the last time I spoke with someone for this long.”

“Nor can I.” Ananais leaned back into her apartment, and then sagged forward again. “We could do it again if you would like. I’m not much for having company, and I’m probably not very good company for you, but if you’d like...”

“I would like very much so. Yes! Thank you. Um.” She smiled. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“You know where to find me.”

She still remembered the day they decided to build the platform between their apartments. They split the cost between them but it turned out not to be terribly expensive. The friendship that had blossomed between them was well worth the expense.

Constance finished her glass of tea. She held the cup in her lap with both hands and watched as the clouds scudded across the sky. Ships moved underneath them as if being towed, and the corners of her mouth played up into a smile as she watched them. She loved the balcony for more than just bringing her closer to Ananais. It gave her a front row seat for the sky. With her feet up, the world seemed to drop away and the entire city was open before her. She felt like she was flying when she sat on the balcony, and after so many years of crawling, it was awe-inspiring and almost holy.

Finally she stood up and stretched, said a silent farewell to her city, and ducked back into her apartment. She reached up to pull the curtains shut, looking across the empty balcony to Ananais’ dark balcony. “Hope to see you tomorrow, my friend. Sleep well.” She brought the two halves of the curtains together, tied the string of one end around the peg of the other, and went to bathe before going to bed.

#

Ananais was woken by the muted trumpet of her alert charm. It was hung from a pair of pegs so that the chain formed an inverted triangle with the pendant hanging down, and it glowed blue in her dark bedroom. She pushed back the blankets and knelt in front of it, cupping the ovoid gem as it pulsed with gentle light. After thirty seconds, the trumpet went silent and a voice spoke: “Today will be a Dark Day. Please plan accordingly.”

“ _Rhaid_ ,” she murmured. Ordinarily she would have simply shuttered the windows and stayed home from work. It was how most people spent the Dark Days. But she had just sacrificed an entire day of potential profits and couldn’t spare another. She considered breaking with tradition but she knew the guilt would be overwhelming. There were ways around the observance, but she didn’t really... 

Her thoughts trailed off. There was someone she could ask for help. She chewed her bottom lip and looked at the clepsydra. The water clock was an illuminated tower on the eastern wall, and four glass baubles were full of the luminous liquid. Dawn was still two hours away, plenty of time for worshippers to make their arrangements but too early for her to wake her friend. But if she didn’t...

She decided she could always ask for forgiveness the next time she went to confession. She gathered her robe over her nightclothes and left her bedroom, crossing to the window. Across the way, Constance’s apartment was dimly lit by the track lighting tucked away behind her furniture. Ananais opened the window, stepped out onto the balcony, and shuddered in the twilight cold as she rattled her black fingernails against the glass. Part of her hoped she was being too quiet for Constance to hear, but the hallway light suddenly brightened and Ananais felt a sprig of guilt sprouting in her chest.

Constance wore a simple blue shift that was tight around her breast and cut high on her hips and lilac-colored leggings. Her hair was mussed from sleep, and she blinked in surprised when she saw who was summoning her. She waved and pushed the glass up.

“I don’t know why I’m surprised. Who else might I expect visiting me this way? Good morning, Ananais.”

“I’m sorry to wake you.”

Constance shook her head. “Anything more than four hours is an indulgence. What’s wrong?”

“It’s... a Dark Day.”

“No.” Constance leaned out the window to peer toward the sky. “It’s just early. The suns--“

Ananais said, “It’s a Dark Day for the _Phassi Culie_.”

Constance’s eyes widened with understanding. “Oh, I see! I’m sorry. I didn’t know you were an adherent to the religion. What exactly does the Dark Day entail? You can’t cast eyes upon the suns for the entire day, right?”

“Yes. Normally I would just stay in from dawn until dark, but I kept my shop closed yesterday for inventory. I can’t take another day without profits. And being a Dark Day, it might still be slow, but I want to be there just in case.” She sighed. “But I’ll need a guide. Someone to escort me around, make sure I don’t wander into traffic or collide with anyone. I wouldn’t ask but there’s no one else. If you would rather not, and I understand you have your own work that--”

“Nyus, shush.” She smiled. “I would be honored to help you. I can have someone cover my work shift. What do I have to do?”

“After the suns rise, come to my apartment. I’m usually at work by eight.”

“Okay. I look forward to it.”

Ananais relaxed and smiled. “Thank you, Stance. I appreciate this very much.”

“I’m glad I can help. Um... good Dark Day?”

“Honored Dark Day.”

“Right. Honored Dark Day to you.”

Ananais nodded her thanks and they parted after a quick brush of their cheeks. Relieved that she had a plan, she went into her bedroom and shuttered her windows so the suns wouldn’t break through. She crawled under the blankets and adjusted the pillows under her head so she could get at least one more hour of sleep before she had to begin preparing.

#

Constance wasn’t simply being kind when she said she barely needed more than four hours of sleep. Meallara were notoriously light sleepers, often going two or three days before the need became overwhelming. Most of them tried to follow more uniform circadian rhythms, lying down with the suns and not rising until the dawn. It was due to this ritual, bedding without sleeping, that most Meallara families had between seven and twelve children. It was because of this that children were not considered precious in her society. 

_”That one is the middle age.” Her father pointed at her. The support struts of her underground bedroom were wide enough to hide her, but the woman tilted her head to better see her. The woman had red skin and red hair, and Constance was frightened. “She won’t be missed.”_

_“Hello, sweetheart,” the woman said in Meallish. She held out one red hand. “You’re going to come with me now.”_

She shook her head and dispelled the memory, coming back to the present and closing her eyes until the haw retracted so she could see properly again. She faced her reflection and smeared berry juice on her bottom lip. She tied a burgundy bandana over her hair, tied it at the base of her neck, and dressed in merchant clothes so she wouldn’t look out of place behind the counter of Ananais’ shop. She smiled at herself in the mirror. Imagine, working in a bookshop! Most Tauzetti had never even read a story on their tablets. Stories came in easy-to-plug attachments that sold for one credit. They were mindless entertainments that people skimmed and discarded if they bothered to buy them in the first place.

But Ananais somehow found a niche. People loved reading stories in books. She didn’t understand what the difference was, but the profit was enough that Ananais didn’t have to worry about money. Perhaps working there for a day would enlighten her to the appeal.

She smoothed her hands down the front of her uniform top and went to the window. She crossed the balcony platform and glanced at the horizon. One sun had peeked up with the other close on its heels. Ananais’ windows were blocked by thick curtains, but the one she approached had a note taped facing the outside so she could read the writing on it: “COME IN.”

Constance pushed the glass up and ducked into the apartment. “Ananais? It’s me. Hold on...” She tucked the curtains back into place. She turned and realized that she had never been inside her friend’s home before. She took a moment to examine the darkened space, like suddenly standing on stage while the actors were still getting dressed.

“The windows are shuttered.”

The bedroom door opened and Ananais emerged. “I appreciate the thought, but it’s unnecessary.” She wore two silver discs over her eyes that were connected by a thin metal strap that conformed to the flat bridge of her nose. Black blinders on extended from the outside curve of the lenses, stretching back to prevent any peripheral light from reaching her eyes. The glass of the lenses was reflective, and Constance saw herself approach and examine the eyewear.

“Remarkable. They look amazing.”

Ananais reached up and touched the corner of the frame. “The very devout still wear the full headdress, but glasses are just as acceptable.”

“Can you see anything through them?”

“No.”

“Well, that’s what I’m here for.” She reached for Ananais’ hand, then drew back. “Um. Oh. Would you prefer if I touched your sleeve?”

Ananais tilted her head. “What a strange question. Why?”

“I’m Meallara.”

“What? When did that happen? Last night you were a bronzed Tauzetti just like me.” She thrust a hand at the window. “Out! Get out of my home, you blue-skinned devil!”

Constance took Ananais’ hand. “All right, you _ocarian_. Just trying to be respectful. I don’t know if the rules are different on holy days.”

Ananais shook her head. “You’re my friend, Stance. Probably my only one. I won’t let the color of your skin get in the way of that.”

Constance was grateful Ananais couldn’t see her sheepish response to that. She guided Ananais out of the apartment and locked the door behind them. She put her friend’s hand on her shoulder and led her out of the building. Ananais slipped her hand down and hooked it around Constance’s elbow, letting herself be led through the sparse crowds. Constance saw what she had always looked past on other Dark Days; the pious _phassi culie_ strolling through the streets with guides moving alongside them. Every other pairing she saw consisted of two Tauzetti, a blinded and a sighted, and the guides all watched her warily as she led Ananais to work. When they rode the ascending platform to the Commerce ring of the Grand Tower, Ananais said, “Are we alone?”

“Yes.” She didn’t mention others had been waiting to go up but chose to wait for a ride where they didn’t run the risk of touching a Meallara. 

“Thank you. You didn’t have to sacrifice your entire day for the observance of a religion you don’t even believe in.”

“I believe in you, Ananais. That’s enough for me.”

“I want you to know the help is appreciated.”

Constance smiled. “It is known. Now you’ll have to help me. I regret to say I haven’t been to your store in a very long time. Do I turn to the sinistra or the dextra?”

Ananais held her hand out to the sinistra and Constance turned that way off the platform. She used the key ring from Ananais’ belt to unlock the shop. She turned on the lights and opened the shutters, then helped Ananais around the counter to have a seat behind the chit reader.

“Okay. Tell me what needs to be done and I’ll see to whatever it is. I’ll try not to mess up your system too much.”

Ananais smiled. “I’ll keep your chores to a minimum, I promise.”

“Thanks. Start me out slow.” She rubbed her hands and looked at the shelves. “Where should I start?”


	4. Chapter 4

“So I suppose now you know my dirty secret.”

Constance looked up from the book leaf, one finger on the line of text where she had stopped reading. She was seated in a plush chair with a platform across her lap where she could rest the book while she read. Ananais was still perched on her seat behind the counter, smiling with her face turned toward the window as if she was a plant seeking the sun. Constance had picked up a story called _Kipling The Iungle Book_ about an abandoned little boy who was taken in by a tikka pack and taught the Law of the Iungle by a great blackgrik. She could envision the animals clearly, but she couldn’t help but wonder what the original creatures had been called. What was a blackgrik to a human? What were tikkas, and were they as fierce as the skulking beasts that roamed the badlands outside the city?

“What secret?”

Ananais gestured at the empty store. They had only greeted two customers since that morning, and only one of them had bought something.

“This shop is more of a place to store my books than a business.”

“Profit is profit,” Constance said. “And I think I’m beginning to appreciate your enjoyment. These stories are quite hypnotic. I’ve never read anything like them.”

“What are you reading?”

“Ky-pleeng the Youngle Book.”

Ananais smiled. “That’s a very good one. Don’t let me interrupt you.”

“No, it’s rude if you can’t enjoy it as well.” She marked her place with a ribbon and closed the book. She looked at Ananais’ glasses, started to ask something, and then bit her tongue to silence it. She rested her elbows on the table and narrowed her eyes. “May I ask you something that may be a bit personal? And you can refuse to answer if you wish.”

“Intriguing. Go on.”

“What is the purpose of Dark Days? What reverence is there in blinding yourself for the length of a day?”

Ananais smiled. “Because the suns are too close and they blind us to the smaller things.”

Constance tried to parse the statement but eventually gave up trying. “I’m sorry. I’m not entirely conversant in _culie_ beliefs.”

“Ah. Well, we are the star-culled, hence our name. We believe that our bodies were created as husks, much like stone or tree or clay. The stars looked upon our world and wished to experience it for themselves, so they granted us their light and gave us life. We carry the light from the stars through all our days, from birth to death. On Dark Days, we block out the twin suns that we orbit so that when night falls we can see the multitudes with clearer vision.”

Constance smiled. “Wow. I like that very much.”

Ananais nodded. “It also helps assert our belief in existence after death. Our lives are simply projected from the stars. We may appear illuminated on the ground, but the suns may also shine in a puddle on the ground. When the light is blocked, the puddle goes dark.” She held her hands out palm up. “But the light still shines elsewhere. It may be diffused or dimmed, but it is still there. Though our bodies sleep that which made us more than dust is still out there.”

“Beautiful,” Constance said. “I may become a convert.”

Ananais’ smile wavered slightly and she turned to look toward the window again. Constance read the meaning in her stiffened posture.

“Ah. Meallara need not apply.”

“I’m sorry. You’re from another world, and according to our beliefs, you weren’t created by starlight.”

“What are we made of?”

Ananais shifted uncomfortably. “Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“It’s why your skin is blue. According to the ancient writings. Stance, you know I don’t believe that. Not in the slightest. You have a soul...”

“How nice of you to acknowledge I’m not an animal.”

“Constance, please. Just because I follow a religion doesn’t mean I believe everything it says. The ancient writings don’t even mention Amarim or Earth or any other species.”

“So the writers went out of their way to declare my people are soulless beasts? No better than a rock or tree?”

“Are you hurt? Do you feel a swelling heat in your torso, below your breastplate?”

Constance bared her teeth. “What do you think?”

Ananais touched the spot on her own chest. “Our people call that our star. So if you feel it, then they must have been mistaken. You have the heat within you, you have feelings and you can hurt. Why would I believe you’re any different from me? Today, Stance, your skin is as red as mine so far as I can tell. You have a soul. I don’t need eyes to know that.”

Constance relaxed and looked down at her book in shame. “I’m sorry. You’ve never done anything to justify those accusations.”

“Your apology is accepted. I’ve never been comfortable with how my religion views your people. I never thought about it until I met you, and from the moment we spoke I knew the stories were wrong.”

“So you weren’t just being a renegade when you spoke to me?”

Ananais laughed. “No. I’m not very good at being sociable. I saw you as an outcast, as someone who might be in need of a friend. I suppose there is some shame in that. I knew you weren’t likely to have a wide circle of compatriots so I knew I wouldn’t have to compete for your attentions.”

Constance shrugged, realizing too late that Ananais couldn’t see it. “There’s only shame if it’s untrue. As it is, you were correct in your realization. I was grateful you were willing to become my friend. I still am.” They were silent for a moment. Constance traced the line of the letters on the book she was holding. “Do you want me to read something to you?”

Ananais perked up. “That would be lovely. Thank you.”

Constance scooted to the edge of her seat. “Do you have any preferences?”

“No, just read me what you were reading. The Ky-pleeng. I’ve read everything in here, naturally. It’s not about the story, it’s about the words.”

“Okay.” Constance used the ribbon to open the book and skimmed for the place where she had stopped. It was awkward and unnatural to recite the marks off the page. Tablets had features that would read the page aloud, but the book provided no such accessory. She coughed softly into her fist and cleared her throat. “‘A fresh shower came down on their heads and the two trotted away, taking Mowgli with them. What Baloo had said about the takikiakas was absolutely true...’”

#

Ananais asked if Constance minded keeping the store open a little later than usual, due to the fact she couldn’t do much at home anyway due to her temporary blindness. Constance was still enjoying the Ky-pleeng, so she readily agreed. By the time they closed the doors and drew down the security wall, they had sold five books. Ananais trusted Constance to count the chits and add it to the ledger. When she was finished, Ananais said, “And five for you.”

“No! That’s nearly a third of your profits for the day.”

“And I keep two-thirds I wouldn’t have earned without your help. The amount is only unfair to you. I said five because I knew you would never take half. Please, Constance. Two-five for the work you did and two-five for the companionship.”

Constance sighed heavily and looked at the chit-reader.

“And don’t just hit a button and pretend you’re crediting your account. I’ll check tomorrow.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I don’t like you either.”

Constance smiled as she reluctantly paid herself. She went through the process of shutting the store and guided Ananais out onto the promenade. Ananais looped her arm around Constance’s elbow again and moved closer to her. The crowd was thicker now, and Constance guessed that two out of every five people they passed were blinkered and being led by a companion. She felt like part of the community for maybe the first time since coming to Tauzi, and she tried to think of a way to express her gratitude for that to Ananais.

“I apologize if you were bored today. Some days are busier than others, and holy days--”

“Bored? I traveled to a dark forest where a boy learned wisdom from a beast and fought against serpentes and a kiercat. I dread going back to the Caesura tomorrow. I may have more customers there but for sheer adventure.” She furrowed her brow. “Hum. I should have let you pay me in books.”

Ananais looked sharply toward her, though of course the glasses still blinded her. “Are you sincere? If you would like to read some books, I have some at home I could share with you. You could discover what kind you like.”

“Is there more than one kind?”

Ananais laughed. “Oh, there are many! There are books about romances, adventuring, crime puzzles... if you enjoyed Ky-pleeng, then you should read Tarzan. I would loan you the copy I have at home but it’s in the English. But I can bring you a copy from the shop tomorrow.”

“I think I would like that very much. Thank you.”

On the walk home, Ananais said, “I would like to cook the evening meal for you. As gratitude for all your help today.”

“I won’t say no. Do you need to get anything from the dispensary?”

“No, I have everything I’ll need. I have Sykaa wine, taps, lewa juice... if you prefer something else, we could pick up a bottle.”

Constance shook her head. “Lewa juice or taps will be fine. I’m excited. I enjoyed seeing your home from the inside this morning. One of these days I’ll have to repay the favor and bring you over. I’ll even let you come through the front door.”

“Seems like an unnecessary distance to travel when our windows are connected.”

“True. Yes, true.” She chuckled and then took a deep breath as they stepped onto the descending platform. She was about to speak when she noticed the sky, the suns drifting toward the far horizon, and the breath caught in her throat. “Oh. Ananais. I wish you could see the sky. The suns are setting together.”

“Describe it to me.”

At first Constance was daunted, unable to think of where to start. “It’s gorgeous. The sky is almost completely clear, except for a bulwark of clouds along the horizon. The companion star has disappeared behind that, and it’s casting these brilliant beams of light out in every direction. And the primary star is shining on the face of the clouds, and it just looks like a wall of plump golden smoke drifting along the edge of the planet. And the sky is velvet far away, but orange-red over the Tower.”

“And in the middle red and blue meet. Like us.”

Constance smiled at her and then chuckled. “Sorry, you can’t see it, but I smiled at that.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Ananais said, with a smile of her own.

They reached the base of the Tower and walked home together.

In Ananais’ apartment, she waited by the door while Constance checked the windows to make sure no sunbeams leaked through. When she was certain it was safe she gave the all-clear. Ananais took off her glasses and squeezed her eyes shut, blinking her black eyes open wide until they adjusted to seeing for the first time that day. She saw Constance’s shadowed silhouette in front of her and smiled. “There you are. I haven’t seen you all day.”

“You must not have been looking very hard.”

Ananais folded the branches of her glasses and put them in a drawer. “There’s a lamp on that end table by divan. You can turn that on.”

“It doesn’t count?”

“No. Only sunlight is verboten on Dark Days. Unnatural light at low levels is fine.”

Constance switched on the light, then reached up to take off her kerchief. She rifled her hair with her fingers so it wouldn’t lie flat and then followed Ananais into the kitchen. Ananais opened a cupboard to peer at what she had available. “I could make you tanix or choud. I’m afraid I don’t have any sauce, though. Do you think choud would be acceptable dry?”

“If you cook it a little less than usual, it should be fine.”

Ananais nodded her agreement and took down the bags. Constance washed her hands under the tap and stepped in to help her. They moved silently, friends accustomed to speaking for an hour or two at a time who had just spent the entire day in on-and-off conversations. They had simply run out of words, and neither found the silence awkward or uncomfortable. While they ate, Ananais told Constance the story of Tarzan the Ape-Man. Constance was eager to read the book, something she would have been skeptical about the day before. The low lighting made the dinner feel intimate enough that they both lowered their voices to respectful whispers as if they were out in public.

They were almost done eating when a brief and mournful sound filled the air. Ananais revealed she was wearing a necklace that Constance hadn’t noticed before, cupping the pendant in her hand as it glowed a soft turquoise color. The sound was replaced by a soft and friendly voice. “The suns have set, and the stars are out. Peace to the faithful.”

Constance found herself oddly excited. “Do you want to go out and look?”

“After dinner.” She tucked the pendant back under her blouse. “Sometimes the announcement comes while there’s still a glow in the sky, and I find that defeats the purpose.”

“Okay.” Constance worried her lip with her teeth. “May I join you? I don’t know how personal or private it is--”

Ananais stopped her by holding up one hand. “I would be honored. I feel you’ve earned it as much as I have. Perhaps more. So yes, I would like that very much.”

Constance smiled and focused on finishing her meal. When they were both done, Constance took their plates into the kitchen and deposited them in the sink. Ananais moved toward the window and gestured for Constance to lead the way.

“Shall we?”

The night air was cool, and Constance climbed into the window and stepped out onto their balcony. She offered her hand to Ananais, who bowed her head in gratitude and lifted her skirt so she could step over the lip. She smoothed her clothes over her thighs and nodded at the platform. “I usually lie down.”

Constance nodded and sat, stretching her legs out before she looked at the sky. Ananais looked up with her, and she inhaled sharply at the sight.

Constance didn’t have to wonder what she saw. She’d never considered the beauty of a night sky before. Stars spread out across the dome of darkness, thousands and thousands of little sparkling spots that sometimes seemed to vanish only to return a heartbeat later even brighter. To the north was a spray of sparkling brown debris from the war between the Amarim Coalition and the Vyrr forces. Ships and satellites and weapons platforms that had been disabled and left behind only to drift toward each other to get caught in their own gravities. It now hung like a bruise on the night sky, but the litter was easy to ignore because the night was alive with natural colors. Constance had never noticed before the shades of purple and yellow and green that made the sky more than just a sheet of darkness.

She looked at Ananais and saw tears tracking down the side of her face from her eyes. She closed her mouth, the comment she meant to speak dying on her tongue.

“You can talk,” Ananais said softly.

“I was... I was only going to say it was fortunate the sky is clear tonight.”

Ananais shook her head. “Not fortune. Our church leaders make arrangements. They investigate the forecast for a clear night, and they request the city government dim their lights, and they send a missive asking the Amarim and Vyrr to cease hostilities within view of Tauzi. It’s what makes the Dark Days so rare and so sacred. Everything must align perfectly.”

Constance looked up at the sky. A war was holding its breath to make this sky, and a city had averted its glare. The thought awed her.

“Nyus... thank you. I sincerely thank you for this day, for sharing it with me. I thought I was just helping a friend with a ritual but I didn’t know how special it would be.”

Ananais moved her hand across the platform and splayed her fingers. Constance almost warned her that she’d taken off her qeque gloves to eat and hadn’t put them on again when she left. She could almost hear Ananais’ reproachful sigh, so she said nothing and linked her fingers with her friend’s. She’d already expressed her gratitude, had already revealed how much the moment meant to her, so she remained silent and looked into the night sky with her friend.


	5. Chapter 5

The next evening when they met on the balcony, Ananais delivered to Constance a book with a red leather cover. She smiled as she handed it over, her hands folded between her knees as Constance examined the pages. She was nervous; she had never given a book as a gift. There had been times when she was tempted, of course, but most people wouldn’t appreciate them or would feel as if the story was being forced on them. Constance, however, she knew would appreciate the opportunity to read. And she hoped Tarzan proved to be enjoyable.

“What’s it about?”

“That’s half the fun, isn’t it?” Ananais said. “But I will tell you it’s like Iungle Book. A child is lost in the forest and raised by the wild beasts he meets there. But this book spends more time on what happens when the boy becomes an adult.”

“I look forward to reading it. Thank you, Ananais.”

Ananais smiled. “It is my pleasure to share. If you enjoy it, there are many other books in my shop you might enjoy. Not exactly stories of children lost in the forests, but wonderful tales nonetheless.”

Constance stood up and bent forward to embrace Ananais. “Thank you.”

Ananais brushed her cheek against Constance’s. “Consider it repayment for all your help yesterday. I truly did appreciate it.”

“It was my pleasure. In fact, if you would be willing to consider it a volunteer appointment, I would be happy to help again if I’m not scheduled at Caesura.”

“That would be amazing. Yes, I would like that very much.” 

They settled back in their seats to watch the suns set. Ananais had a bowl of skeka flakes which she offered to share, but Constance declined. She didn’t want the pieces of paper-thin wafers sticking to her fingers and transferring to the pages of her gift. She tucked her legs underneath her and skimmed the words, flipping through a whole chapter before she looked up and saw Ananais watching her. “I’m sorry. I’m being terribly rude, aren’t I?”

“No! I enjoy watching someone enjoy a story.”

Constance closed the book and said, “It’s getting dark anyway. I’ll read more in bed.” She smoothed her hand over the front cover and looked out at the darkening sky. She smiled and gave a quiet laugh. “You know looking at the suns set now, I feel different. I don’t know why. I’m not the one who was blinded yesterday. But I understand how important is. I’ve always taken it for granted.” She looked at Ananais. “Is the dusk always spiritual for you?”

“No,” she said. “I can take it for granted as well as the next person. But after a Dark Day it’s hard not to feel a little awed by the size of the universe. Do you know the orbits?”

“Only what I learned in school. The larger sun stands in the middle of our system, we orbit it, and the companion star orbits the both of us. It’s why sometimes one chases the other and other times the pursuit is reversed.”

Ananais nodded. “It’s a game of spinning cups played out on a scale we can’t even imagine. I see the reels of footage from the war, captures from the outer hulls of Amarim ships, and it...” She narrowed her eyes. “It’s so vast out there. And it’s endless. When we first encountered the Vyrr, the world was shaken. The riots and the insanity that followed.”

Constance remembered; she had briefly studied Tauzi even in the rudimentary school she attended. “The reaction was similar on my world, when we encountered the Amarim Coalition,” she said. “Religions were suddenly rendered ridiculous and small. Thousands of years of scholarly pursuits wasted because we had convinced ourselves we were alone in the universe.”

“Yes. Our people both believed we existed in an empty silence. But then one ship came, and that ship brought others, and today we can’t comprehend how our ancestors could have been so blind. The universe is flooded with people and ships and societies... and who knows how many other worlds are out there that we just haven’t stumbled over? Planets like Earth, people who lack the ability to leave their own system. They’re out there, just waiting for us to hear a signal or see a flicker of light and come to investigate. Watching the suns reminds me that we’re just one planet out of many. And that makes me feel both insignificant and vast in the same moment.”

Constance smiled. “I understand entirely.” She tilted her head back. “The stars are coming out.”

“So they are.” Ananais looked as well. She brought her feet up onto the seat of her chair and wrapped her arms around them. “Sometimes I try to guess which star is mine. Trying to figure out which of the flickering multitudes is casting its light down to give me life.”

Constance extended her arm and pointed. “That one?”

“It’s very bright.”

“Intense and shimmering. It reminds me of you.”

“ _Jut_ ,” Ananais said softly, looking down at her bare feet. “I’m hardly intense.”

“You can be shy and small, yes. But when you speak about your shop or books or stories, I see a light that puts that star to shame.”

Ananais smiled. “You honor me.”

Constance shrugged her shoulders and leaned back to watch the stars. She felt drowsiness settling on her shoulders like a yoke and resisted the urge to close her eyes.

“It’s getting late. I think I should retire.”

“As should I.” Ananais linked her fingers and pushed her arms out ahead of her. She rocked her head from side to side as she rose. “If you would like, I could buy you a shine. It’s a light that hangs from a necklace so you can read in the dark.”

Constance smiled. “You don’t have to buy me anything.”

“Perhaps for the next Eclipse.”

“That would be fine. And yes, I think I would like that very much.” She hesitated, as if she didn’t want to stand.

Ananais said, “Would you like to share my bed?”

Constance looked at her. “You wouldn’t mind?”

“Of course not.”

Constance considered the offer and then smiled. “Okay. I’ll get my night clothes. I’ll be right back.”

Ananais tried to act casual, but she was nervous. She had only made the offer because she’d handled entertaining a dinner guest for the first time in years. Sharing a bed was basically the same, or so she’d been led to believe. She always thought it was a more intimate experience. The few times she had shared a bed with someone - be they friends from school or acquaintances far from home - she found herself too nervous to actually sleep. She hooked her fingers together and pressed them against her sternum, between her breasts, and stood when she saw Constance coming back through her apartment.

“Are you ready?”

Constance nodded. “I’m excited. I’ve never shared a bed with anyone before.”

Ananais was surprised. “Never?”

They stepped into Ananais’ apartment, and she extended a hand to help Constance inside. “Discounting my siblings. I had friends when I was a teenager but even they were wary about sleeping with a Meallara. Afraid of inadvertent skin contact while we slept.”

Ananais noticed that Constance had chosen a combination that covered her entire arms and legs, leaving only her hands, feet, and head exposed. She stopped and moved in front of Constance. 

“Will you be comfortable wearing all that?”

“Of course. It’s fine.”

Ananais leaned in and pressed her cheek against Constance’s. Constance stiffened, but soon she relaxed into her friend’s embrace.

“If you wish to go back and choose different sleepwear, I will get dressed while I wait for you. I hope I’ve never given you the impression that I’m one of those who think blue skin is inherently unclean.” She moved her hand back and brushed her thumb over Constance’s ear, where the pale gray-blue faded to darker.

“You haven’t. I just erred on the side of caution. I didn’t want to put you in the position of telling me to cover myself.”

“I would never. Now go.”

Constance nodded. “I’ll be right back.”

Ananais let her go and went down the hall into her bedroom. She undressed quickly, changing into the shortest shift she owned so Constance wouldn’t get the wrong idea. Her arms were bare to the shoulder, her legs to mid-thigh, and she left the blankets bundled at her waist when she climbed into bed. Constance arrived not long after. She had already changed into the pajamas Constance had seen the previous morning when asking her to help with her Dark Day. Constance got into bed on the opposite side and Ananais scooted down, reaching over to sweep her hand through the slot on her lamp. The light dimmed, and she settled against her pillow.

“Do you sleep with music playing?”

“No, I prefer silence.” A pause. “Unless you--”

Ananais shook her head. “No.” She remained on her back for a moment before rolling onto her side. Constance turned her head to look at her and they both smiled. “I’m very glad you’re my neighbor, Stance.”

Constance’s smile faded and she reached out to touch Ananais’ cheek. She brushed her thumb over the skin that seemed almost like rosewood with the lights out.

“Thank you for making me feel _kev’fit_.”

The word meant “not other,” and Ananais chuckled softly. “It’s easy to feel foreign even if you’re born here. You did the same thing for me.”

“Nyus. I have to ask you something personal.”

Ananais nodded that it was okay.

“Are you mid-range or high?”

“Oh.” Ananais almost rolled onto her back, but that seemed like a cowardly response to what was essentially a straight-forward question. 

“I hope you don’t think I was being forward.”

Ananais shook her head. “No. Not at all.” 

Constance found Ananais’ hand under the blankets and linked their fingers. “I only ask because, in my experience I’m very low-range, but the way I feel for you could be enough to make the difference. Perhaps I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“No. I’m glad it can be addressed.” Ananais felt Constance’s palm against her, the slightly rougher texture of her skin an undeniable yet attractive component of her otherness. “I’m... I guess I’m nothing. But my ideal mate would be female, yes.”

Constance made a quiet sound to show she had heard without passing judgment. After a moment she said, “I think I would be comfortable if you wanted to kiss me.”

Ananais said, “But would you want it?”

“I don’t know.”

Ananais watched Constance for another moment and then said, “Stand up.”

They pushed the blankets back and stood up, moving to the foot of the bed where they stood facing each other. In bare feet the Tauzetti-Meallara height disparity was more evident, and Constance had to tilt her head back to meet Ananais’ face. Ananais cupped her hands on either side of Constance’s head, her thumbs resting just beside Constance’s eyes with her fingers in her hair. She closed her lips and worked them with her tongue to work up saliva, her mouth suddenly dry, and tilted forward. Constance wet her top lip with a sweep of her tongue, her bottom lip seemingly bare without the dark smudge of berry that she wore during the day.

Their lips touched just barely, parting so their tongues could meet. Ananais felt a momentary twinge, an oddness at offering her tongue to a different species, but Constance hardly counted as something alien. They stood close enough that Constance’s feet were between Ananais’, eyes open as their tongues moved from one mouth to the other. They both breathed deeply, and Ananais tried not to let herself be swooned by the fact she was kissing a woman. It had been so long since she had a partner that she would be willing to bed someone even if it didn’t feel just right. And regardless of how she felt, the verdict was Constance’s to make.

Ananais listened to the hum of the clepsydra behind her, trying to gauge the passage of time before the kiss ended. Constance rocked back on her heels and touched her bottom lip with her small finger. She finally looked up and smiled sheepishly.

“What do you think?”

“I’m not sure.”

Ananais touched Constance’s hair. “Then you know. It’s all right. I’m not at fault for being female, and you’re not at fault for being attracted to the opposite sex. There’s no room here for hurt feelings.” 

“I feel as if I’ll have to settle for less than perfect anyway. Meallar males are conscripted as groundfighters for Amarim or Vyrr, so I’m not likely to encounter one of them in the course of my life. And if I have to settle then I could do far worse than you.” She realized the fallacy in her argument. “Of course you shouldn’t be forced to settle for someone who is settling.”

“Do you see a line of sparkers waiting to make me theirs? I could do far worse than you.”

Constance laughed. “You’re quite a sparker yourself. Smooth talk.”

Ananais smiled and tucked a strand of hair behind Constance’s ear. “You should be with the person you want to be with. There’s someone out there who will suit you far better than I.”

Constance embraced Ananais and rested her head on Ananais’ shoulder. “I wish it could just be easy.”

“Me too.” She ran her fingers through Constance’s hair, amazed by the thickness of it. There were layers upon layers, shifting strands of black and silver like a sand art bottle. She threaded it through her fingers and stifled her disappointment. She would have eagerly welcomed Constance as a lover, would have undressed her with care and led her into the stall to sanctify their relationship as lovers. But if Constance’s heart wasn’t in it, then Ananais still counted herself lucky to have the Meallara as a friend.

“Come. Let’s go back to bed.”

They went to opposite sides of the mattress and climbed under the blankets. They faced each other again and Ananais watched as Constance’s features relaxed in the soft glow of the water clock. She tried valiantly to remain awake but soon her dark silver lashes fluttered over her pale eyes and the muscles of her face relaxed ever so slightly. Ananais remained still and silent, unwilling to disturb her friend in any way.

She planned to watch her all night, but she fell asleep soon after Constance, the two women loosely intertwined as they drifted off to dream together.


	6. Chapter 6

Sometime during the night Constance rolled onto her side and Ananais spooned her from behind. When they woke they brushed their cheeks together in greeting. Ananais offered Constance the first shower of the day and dressed while she bathed. While they ate, Constance apologized for the night before. Ananais dismissed the apology as unnecessary. 

“I wouldn’t ask you to change simply to suit me, any more than you would change me to suit your desires. At least I got a kiss out of the experiment.”

Constance smiled and held out her index finger. Ananais curled her smallest finger around it and squeezed before letting her go.

Constance went home to change for work, and Ananais left so she could get to work early. Constance carried Tarzan under her arm as she walked, opening it from time to time to read passages when she was forced to wait for a ground-based transport to pass. She ignored the sidelong glances of people she stood with on the corner. When she got to Caesura, Olin greeted her as usual and then tilted her head to look at what she was carrying. “Oh, stars, is that a book?”

“Yes. I helped a friend yesterday and she gave this to me as a gift.” She offered it to Olin, who examined the title before opening to a random page. “It’s about a boy who is left in the wild and raised by beasts and how he tries to be accepted by them.”

“So it’s like your story?”

Constance’s smile wavered. “Pardon?”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to be rude. But a person removed from their civilization and brought to a new land where he has to learn the customs and is treated differently. It’s similar to your experience.”

“I suppose it is.” She wondered if Ananais had thought of that when she chose the book. But no... Ananais chose Tarzan because she’d seen Constance reading Iungle. She was sure the subtle meaning was just overthinking. She took the book back from Olin. “Regardless, it’s an amazing story. I’ve only read a little of it but so far I very much enjoy what I’ve read.”

“You’ll have to tell me about it when you reach the end.”

Constance nodded and they performed the necessary rituals to release Olin and log Constance in. The first day she had the book it sat in her cubby most of the day. On her second shift she found spare moments in which she could read a few sentences without sacrificing attention to her customers. She started to carry the book in her satchel as she made her rounds so it would always be close to hand.

After Olin’s comment it was difficult for her not to relate with Tarzan. He was ostracized and felt different from everybody around him, an outsider. Constance read about the moment Tarzan first saw his own reflection and was horrified. “It had been bad enough to be hairless, but to own such a countenance! He wondered that the other apes could look at him at all,” the book said.

Constance lifted her gaze and scanned the room of red faces. No Amarim soldiers that day, and she was for once saddened by the fact. When their alien presence filled the room hers seemed less noticeable. Now she stood out and she resisted the urge to duck her head into the collar of her blouse. Her inner eyelid closed, momentarily turning the room around her hazy as her mind conjured up the memory of the first night she saw Tauzi.

Her transport had indeed landed at night, and most people on the street wore hoods against the rain. The Tower stretched high into the sky, sheathed by clouds that let only the barest hint of light through. She had shrunk back against the side of the woman who brought her to this strange place and tried to disappear into the folds of her skirts. The woman had pushed her back to the side and chuffed down at her in a rough approximation of the Meallar language. 

“Foolish it be stop now!” the woman said, making her sound ridiculous as well as scary. “You brave or I suffer you make. Understand? Understand said I?”

Constance remembered the tremor of her bottom lip as she forced herself to nod rapidly so she wouldn’t be deemed disruptive or contrary. Her shoes, barely more than cloth held to her feet by leather straps that crossed over the slope and then tied around her ankle, scuffed the pavement as she was hauled along like luggage.

The woman had smiled with her parents, had been kind and sweet and lovely. That vanished as soon as they were aboard the transport. Now her grip was rough and her lips were pulled back to expose her teeth. It was a hideous expression, and Constance had kept her eyes on her feet as they skitter-hopped over the hard ground.

“Excuse me.”

Constance closed her eyes tightly as the membrane retracted. When she opened them again the room seemed too bright and too loud, and she blinked rapidly before turning her head to look for who had spoken. The woman’s eyes were wide, her face set in an expression of apology as she held up both hands to show they were empty. She backed up a step and Constance self-consciously closed her book on her finger so she wouldn’t lose her place.

The woman was Tauzetti, dressed in leathers in a pattern Constance didn’t recognize at Tauzi fashion. She could see the collar of a pale-green underblouse poking out from underneath the collar of her top. Her skin was pale red where the dark hair had been trimmed to leave her face, cheeks, and forehead bare. The style matched Ananais’, so Constance assumed they were from the same province. The woman smiled and showed small white teeth.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“I was distracted by my storying. I should apologize to you. Did you require service?”

The woman smiled and shook her head. “No. Well... yes, I suppose I do. But I was curious. That’s a book you’re reading. Isn’t it?”

“Yes. It’s called _Tarzan of the Apes_.”

“It’s not a title I’m familiar with. But I traveled with Amarim transports for eighteen frames. They had some Earth materials on every ship I served upon, and I figured out how to read some of them. I didn’t know any had made it here, and I’ve never met anyone else who could read Earthish.”

“Oh! I can’t either.” She opened the book and pointed at the page. “My friend Ananais translates them into Tau.”

The woman’s eyes widened. “No! Where?”

“She has a shopfront on the Commerce ring. Her prices are reasonable.”

“It would be worth any price to not worry over translation and confusion. Do you mind if I look...?”

“Not at all.” Constance turned the book around, and the woman bent forward the skim the pages. She held her hand on the page to keep from losing Constance’s place. “Do you know the work of Emily Di C’kinson?”

“No. I don’t know much of anything. This is only the second book I’ve read.”

“She writes a form of story that is very short, sparse, and the couplets tend to rhyme. It makes it easier to translate. But this! This is astounding. Is the entire book one story?”

“Yes.” She was tempted to offer the book to her new friend, but she couldn’t give away a gift. Besides, she wanted to know how things ended with Tarzan and the new woman who had suddenly arrived in his life. “I could give you directions to her shop.”

“That would be very appreciated. Thank you very much.”

“Oh. My name is Constance Kaasyn.” She didn’t offer her cheek; in her experience even the friendliest Tauzetti cringed from physical contact with her. 

“Ceanan Fryss. I’m very glad I summoned the courage to approach you.” She pushed the book back to Constance as if reluctant to part with it. “I’m tempted to forgo lunch and simply run to the shop right now. But hunger prevails.”

“Then I’ll try to make your wait as short as possible.” She marked her place and returned the book to her satchel, exchanging it for her order tab. “What would you like?”

#

Ananais was on a rolling ladder at the back of her shop, filing away two new books when she heard the sound of the shop’s door opening and quietly closing. “I’ll be with you in one moment.” She finished shelving the books, descended the ladder, and brushed her hands on the front of her tunic as she walked to the front of the store. A woman in ornate leathers, the hair on the right side of her head braided into a rope that trailed over her shoulder, was standing between the front tables staring up at the shelves.

“ _Sannu_. What are you interested in?”

“Everything.”

Ananais couldn’t stop her laugh. “Well! I think that would be a costly proposition, and I can guarantee you wouldn’t like much of what you ended up with. Perhaps we could narrow it down just a fraction. Are you interested in romance stories? Stories of action or adventure?”

“Traveling stories?”

Ananais turned to face the shelves and brought one finger up to tap her front tooth with the nail as she pondered. “I think I could find something of interest. Come with me. My name is Ananais.”

“Ceanan. Constance actually told me about your shop. I had to run directly over to see it for myself. It’s remarkable!”

“I’ll have to thank her. Come this way. I think I have an idea of where to start.”

They wandered into the stacks, where Ananais scanned for a title and plucked it away from its neighbors. “ _Lost Horizon_. A group of diplomats discover a utopian society in distant mountains.” She handed the book to Ceanan and moved further down the row. Ceanan followed her, staring in amazement at the spines they passed.

“How could you possibly have done this all on your own?”

“I know someone who binds them for me. The translations are easy enough. I’ve been working on them since I was a child. Once I cracked the language it became easy for me. Well... less complicated. I work on them in my spare time and on leisure days. Usually when there are Dark Days I work all day in my apartment while observing the darkness. But it’s true, there’s only so much one person can do. That’s why the collection is so sparse.”

“Sparse?” Ceanan laughed. “This must have taken the dedication of a zealot.”

“The alternative would be taking a break to teach someone else the language. It’s easier to simply carry on with it myself.”

“How many books do you translate per frameset?”

“Per frame?” A frameset was six hundred days, and she could translate an entire novel in two or three days. She did the math in her head, allowing herself hypothetical days off. “Two hundred and thirty. And I’ve been working on them for twenty-seven frames. So.” She chose another book from the shelf and places it on top of the one Ceanan already carried. She didn’t say that sometimes she translated more than one book at a time, or that sometimes she stayed up all night to finish a book in a single day. The result was nearly seven thousand books, and the number was always growing.

“So you’ve read every book you sell?”

“Yes. I can’t always be trusted to remember exact details, however.”

“I won’t quiz you. But I perhaps would like to discuss the story with you after I’ve read it.”

Ananais tried not to look too eager. “I would love to talk to you about books. I don’t often have the opportunity. I very truly owe Constance a debt of gratitude for pointing you in my direction.”

“As do I,” Ceanan said.

They continued to weave through the shelves, pausing and occasionally backtracking so Ananais could pick up a book they had already passed. Soon Ceanan was carrying a heavy stack of five books, which she deposited on a table to give her arms a rest. She looked down at them and ran her fingers over the cover of each one.

“Now to decide which of these to purchase. As much as I would like all of them, I should restrict myself to only... only four.” She looked at the small tags on each book and mentally added up the cost. She pushed one book aside immediately, placed a second on top of it, and looked at the remaining three. She finally just took two at random, leaving the final book by itself.

Ananais picked up the leftover and placed it on top of the stack. “And this will be a gift.”

“Oh! No. I couldn’t.”

“I insist. Your love of reading is apparent. Perhaps it’s clear to me because it’s similar to my own. I know you will appreciate the book, and so I want you to have it.”

Ceanan smiled. “Thank you very much, Ananais.”

“Come to the front and I’ll scan you.” As they walked Ananais turned to look back. “I’ve never met anyone else who enjoyed reading. Where did you pick up the habit?”

“I’m a chronicler. I file reports on the hostilities for the government so they’ll know if there’s anything they should be concerned about.”

“So you’re the one who determines if Amarim’s holiday privileges are revoked?”

“Not me alone. There’s a whole corps of us up there filing reports and sending them back. They get gathered together and a consensus is reached before a final report is passed along. One person’s point of view doesn’t matter; it’s only when all opinions and observations have been examined that a true picture can be given.”

Ananais nodded and began scanning the books. “I see. So you go back and forth between Tauzi and the Coalition base?”

“Usually, yes. This last time I was there for eighteen frames because there was a particularly intense bout of fighting. A Vyrr supply transport was destroyed and they blamed Amarim, who denied responsibility. By the time it was discovered to be a standard mechanical failure, skirmishes had already broken out. I wanted to stay until the incident was finished so my report would be conclusive.” She handed over her chit, barely looking at the total-cost display Ananais offered. “But now I’m here to stay, save for brief excursions back up. I’ll definitely be coming back here when I’m on liberty.”

“I hope you do. Thank you for your business.”

“Thank you for the gift. Ananais, yes?”

She nodded. “Ananais Stone.”

“Ceanan Fryss.” She leaned across the counter and brushed her cheek against Ananais’. “It was a great pleasure to meet you.”

Ananais watched her walk to the door and drummed her fingers rapidly on the countertop before she spoke. “Wait.” Ceanan turned. “I. Um. If you’ve been away for eighteen frames, then you probably have a lot of family and friends with whom you have to become reacquainted.”

“I just bought five books,” Ceanan said. “I haven’t much call for my time.”

Ananais said, “In that case, maybe you would like to have dinner with me. A welcome-back-to-Tauzi meal.”

“First a book and now a meal? I’m flattered.” She came closer to the counter again. “I am dying for an authentic _kizzore’tt_ plate. Is there anywhere nearby that offers them?”

“There’s a place on the Dining ring. I close the shop just before the suns set on most days, but business was good today.” She smiled and Ceanan returned it. “I could close early if you’d prefer to eat earlier than that.”

“No, it’s fine. I’ll be back at around twenty-one...?”

“That would be ideal.”

Ceanan smiled. “I look forward to it.”

Ananais agreed and, afterward was surprised to find it was true. For the first time in ages, she was actually anticipating a social interaction. She certainly enjoyed her time with Constance, but that was different. That was a neighbor, a fellow singularity in a city of sameness. She smoothed her palms over the counter, then turned to register the sales and mark down the book she’d given away.

#

Ananais waited for the shawl to descend, waited for her enjoyment to transform into panic and anxiety. She feared another bad day brewing. Sometimes she felt as if she had only a certain amount of socializing programmed into her, and when it ran out she would be adrift without anchor. She silently started counting the minutes when Ceanan returned to the shop, browsing until it came time to close. They rode up to the Dining ring together, and they shared the largest plate of _kizzore’tt_ available as they exchanged stories. Ananais didn’t have much to tell, and Ceanan’s experiences as chronicler were far more interesting than tales of translation and dusty days in a bookshop.

They picked at their food between conversing until they noticed the restaurant was beginning to clear out. After some haggling over which one of them deserved to pay, they split the bill and left the Tower together. Ananais pointed in the direction of her building and Ceanan smiled. “It’s on my way. I’ll walk you to your door.”

“That would be lovely. Thank you.”

“I started reading _Lost Horizon_ this afternoon. It almost made me late for our rendezvous. It’s fantastic, which bodes well for your other recommendations.”

Ananais smiled proudly. “I’m glad you’re enjoying it.”

“I’m also enjoying our time together. I would like to do it again.”

“Again?” Ananais scanned the street, feeling nervous but nowhere near the crippling anxiety she ordinarily expected in a situation like this. “Again... we could do that. But only if you allow me to pay for your meal next time. I feel as if I’ve taken far too much of your money already, and we’ve only known each other one day.”

Ceanan said, “The first day of many, I hope. If it isn’t too presumptuous.”

“No. Not at all.”

They walked in silence until they reached Ananais’ building. They stood just to one side of the front door, and then faced each other.

“May I kiss you?”

“Yes,” Ananais said softly. 

She closed her eyes and leaned in. Their lips met and parted, and Ananais allowed Ceanan’s tongue into her mouth. Ceanan stepped closer and Ananais let her in, furrowing her brow with eyes closed as she focused on the mingling of tastes. It took them a moment to dispel the lingering sauces from their shared dinner but, when it cleared, Ananais moaned and deepened the kiss. She gripped Ceanan’s upper arms to keep her from pulling away, surprised by her aggression even as she dug her fingers in. She felt Ceanan’s lips curling into a smile just before they pulled apart.

“I may have bruised you.”

“It’s very okay.” She pecked the corners of Ananais’ lips in an almost familial way, but the lingering moisture of Ananais’ saliva on her lips made it more intimate. “It’s been a very long while sing I’ve been in the position to be bruised. Gives me evidence to prove it really happened tomorrow. I’ll see you again... at your shop?”

Ananais nodded and let her go. They exchanged goodbyes and Ananais went into the air-cooled space of her building’s atrium. Her skin erupted in rough flesh and she rubbed her forearms to make it settle. She had kissed, and been kissed, and it was a fantastic kiss. A beautiful and delicious kiss that told her there would be more in the future.

When she got in her apartment she unwound the ankle straps of her shoes and pulled them off, walking barefoot to the window. She didn’t know what she would have done if Constance was waiting, but the balcony was empty. She craned her neck and saw a light in the hall leading to the bedroom, so she assumed her friend was already in bed. The urge to thank, to express gratitude, overwhelmed her. With no outlet for it she was in disarray. 

She thought a moment and then came to the perfect conclusion. She hurried to her room and knelt next to the bed where her books were. She dug to the bottom, found the one she was looking for, and took it to her translation table. She had started it ages ago but decided it wasn’t worth the time when the first wasn’t selling. Her friend had bound the book and imprinted the title on the front piece, but the story was incomplete. Now she had a reason to finish. She opened the original to the last page she’d translated and went to work.

#

Constance waited by the window, reading her book by the waning light of the setting suns. She was eager to see if Ananais had met with Ceanan, if she’d made a sale, but the apartment across the way remained dark. When she finally decided Ananais would be home late, Constance put a marker in her book - it really was entertaining - and she went to take a bath. She wondered if Earth forests were like those on Tauzi, as she pictured them. Vast swamps, trees with vines hanging down from the canopy, vast darkness. She envisioned Tarzan as a Tauzetti, given his name, and imagined him thick with brown-red fur that should have been shaven when he reached maturity. It was odd to think the human writer had most likely intended for an entirely different visual for his creation.

After showering she went directly to bed, sitting up with a candle to illuminate her pages. When she fell asleep, Tarzan was rescuing a “Frenchman” from torture and certain death at the hands of savages. She dreamed of the scene, picturing herself in the Frenchman’s place. Instead of terrifying savages she saw a group of red-skinned Tauzetti men. She saw them holding her down, tearing her clothing off, and having their way with her.

Constance woke in a sweat, frightened and frighteningly aroused, so shaken that she had to take another shower just to wash the dream off of her.

She wrapped herself in a towel and padded barefoot into the kitchen for early meal. She glanced at the balcony out of habit and stopped mid-step when she saw the parcel leaning against the glass. She changed course, pushed up the glass, and it fell inside. The package was obviously a book, but when she looked into the apartment across the way the main room was dark. Constance sat on the windowsill to peel back the paper and withdrew the book.

“THE RETURN OF TARZAN.”

Constance forced her mouth to close, running her finger over the side of the book. Another tale! Another story about the ape-man, which meant she wouldn’t have to say goodbye when the book ended. She started to open the book but stopped herself for fear of revealing any elements of the story she had yet to reach. Instead she traced the embossed name on the cover and chuckled to herself. She flipped to the last page, intending to see how many pages the book held, and instead she saw two things. One, the ink on the final page was still slightly wet, and a note at the bottom of the page said, “THANK YOU - Nyus.”

“You are very welcome, friend.” She chuckled and stood up to carry the book into her bedroom where it would wait on her nightstand until she was ready for it.


	7. Chapter 7

Ananais went to bed less than an hour before the suns lit the city, and she slept until they were high in the sky. When she woke she did an internal inventory to see if she was suffering a crippling inner spasm that would make this a bad day. She opened her eyes and moved her fingers to her mouth, smiling as she realized her mood had remained heightened during the day. She pushed back the blankets and went into the stall to bathe, smiling even as her fingers wrinkled and the hot water turned cold.

Constance was already at work so she didn’t even try to look out the window to see if she was there. She made herself tea, inhaling the aroma as it steeped. She remembered the night before, holding tightly to Ceanan on the doorstep, joined at the mouth. She shivered in the warm afternoon sun and massaged a cramp from her hand. She had barely finished the translation in time to wrap it. She chuckled quietly as she realized she had given away three books in the past few weeks, two to Constance and one to Ceanan. But what good was having access to stories if she couldn’t give a few away? And Ceanan had more than earned a free book.

For another kiss like the one they’d shared the night before, Ananais would have given up her entire bookshop. 

Eventually she dressed and left her apartment. She would only have enough time to open the store for three hours before foot traffic on the esplanade made it pointless to remain. Still, three hours could make a difference. She would at least have her doors open when other workers left their work and headed home.

She fumbled with her keys as she approached, so she didn’t notice Ceanan watching her from a nearby bench until she’d almost passed her. She stopped suddenly, Ceanan fighting a smile as she stood up and approached cautiously.

“I have a complaint to lodge.”

“Oh?”

“Your sign says you’re open from ten until seventeen. I’ve been here nearly two hours waiting for you to show up.”

“ _Phassi_ ,” she cursed. “I am so sorry!”

“Don’t be. The result is worth the wait.” She leaned in and softly kissed Ananais’ cheek. “I wanted to see you again and I didn’t think it was appropriate to wait outside your home.”

“I wouldn’t have minded. Please come in.”

She unlocked the door and ushered Ceanan inside. She turned on the lights and Ceanan reached up to brush her braid back. 

“I read more of _Lost Horizon_ last night. I really appreciate your suggestion of it.”

Ananais smiled. “I’m always pleased when a reader enjoys a book from my store.”

Ceanan took a seat at one of the reading tables Ananais usually pushed back for story time. She folded her hands together and looked down at the way the thumbs rested against each other. 

“I was also distracted by thoughts of the kiss we shared. I wanted to know if it was as good for you as it was for me.”

Ananais wet her lips. “No. No, I think it was probably better for me.”

“So you’re interested in me?”

“I am. I’m uncertain why you would be interested in me, but I’m not going to analyze it too carefully.” She smiled. “I’m willing to take advantage of your confusion until you get bored and move on.”

Ceanan chuckled and stood up. “Shall I elucidate? You are beautiful, Ananais. I came here for books but the moment I saw you I hoped I might gain more. A friend, at the least. You share my love of literature so I’ll never have to defend or explain myself to you when a book makes me cry or requires me to have a conversation. I see the light in your eyes when you search for the perfect book and it appeals to me very much. For those things, I am willing to spend time with you so that I might find even more traits that I like. Is that enough, or shall I continue?”

Ananais had dropped her head to look at her shoes. “Please don’t.”

“I didn’t mean to embarrass you.”

“I know. I’m sorry. It’s just that I’m...” She swallowed hard and looked around as if her words were hidden among the shelves. “I don’t do well with people.”

“You’re doing fine with me.”

Ananais nodded. “And for that I’m so grateful. You can’t even imagine how much so. There is medication I can take to lessen the extent of my discomfort, and I would take it if I need it to speak with you. You’re fascinating. And beautiful. And, as you said, it’s so rare to meet someone whose love of books rivals my own. I am very attracted to you, Ceanan.”

Ceanan put her hand on top of Ananais’. “And I to you. I came back home after spending eighteen frames among the verdigris masses of Amarim, and one of the first red faces I see upon landing is yours. You would have been memorable to me for that alone, but your beauty stuck you in my mind. And now that we’ve flattered each other fully, I would like to kiss you again.”

“Yes.”

Ceanan came around the counter and Ananais put a hand on her hip to draw her close. Today Ceanan wore a simple puce-colored vest that left the white sleeves of her blouse exposed. Ananais’ hand slid under the hem of the vest to touch warm flesh as their lips met. Ceanan turned to press her hips against the counter, putting Ananais in the aggressor position. Ananais remembered how she had gripped Ceanan’s arms the night before, how the strength had been welcomed, and she put her other arm around her waist. The first kiss had been exploratory, an examination to test their compatibility. Now it was simply passion and desire, and Ananais was grateful she could pin Ceanan against the counter so she didn’t have to focus on standing. 

When they parted, Ceanan turned her head and bit the shoulder of Ananais’ blouse. Ananais gasped and licked Ceanan’s temple, tasting her sweat and hair. “We should stop. This is unseemly, and it’s far too fast.”

“I concur. But it’s difficult to make myself stop.” She tilted her head back and kissed Ananais’ chin. “I anticipate getting to know you much better in the coming months, Ananais Stone.”

They brushed their cheeks together with the slow familiarity of those who were already lovers, eyes closed and hands roaming. When they parted they kissed again, and Ceanan let Ananais taste her tongue again. Ananais cupped the back of her head and held her in place, then pulled back and kissed the tip of her nose, its bridge, the center of her forehead, and then stretched onto her toes to kiss the top of her head.

“Next time come to my home.”

“I will.”

Ananais smiled and stepped back to free Ceanan. Ceanan reached up to fix her hair and then gestured at the bag Ananais hadn’t noticed. “I brought my book. Do you mind if I sit and read while you work?”

“You can stay and read. I doubt I will do much work, though.”

Ceanan smiled and retrieved her bag. Ananais watched her thumb through the pages to find where she had left off, then forced herself to turn away so she could get some modicum of work done before she shuttered the store again. She hated to miss a full day’s business, but sometimes the right incentive made it worth the loss.

#

Constance’s fellow wait staff had become accustomed to finding her leaning over a book when she wasn’t helping customers, and they were more than willing to tap her arm or give a quiet whistle if a new customer arrived in her section. She was nearing the end of Tarzan, eager to reach the end now that she had a whole second book waiting for her. She rested her elbow on the table, eyes glued to the page, so startled when Shorla tapped her arm that she nearly yelped. The sound died in her throat, however, and she followed Shorla’s pointing finger to the person standing in the doorway. Ananais was so out of context in the restaurant that for a moment Constance didn’t really believe it was her, but she wore the merchant tunic, and carried a satchel heavy with books over one shoulder. 

Constance closed the book and smiled as she stepped into the dining room. She pointed to an empty table in her section and Ananais made her way over. They arrived at the same time and Ananais surprised her with a hug. Constance tensed in surprise, then squirmed uncomfortably as she noticed other customers looking away. A Tauzetti embracing a Meallara in public was uncouth. She waited long enough that she wouldn’t be considered rude before easing out of her friend’s embrace.

“What was that for?”

“Ceanan.”

Constance’s smile returned with force. “I assumed things went well when the gift showed up this morning. Thank you very much for that, by the way. It was extremely appreciated.”

“It felt like the only way I could truly express my gratitude.” She sat down and, after glancing around to see if she was needed elsewhere, Constance sat across from her. “Ceanan is simply amazing. She shares my love of reading. She’s beautiful. She’s... high-range.”

Constance laughed and raised an eyebrow. “Really? I’m no good at identifying that sort of thing. I thought I was only sending you a customer!” She chuckled. “Well, if it worked out, no wonder you gave me such an amazing gift.”

“She’s at the shop now. She’s been there all day reading.” She smiled and looked down at her hands. “I fully expect to get back with our midday meals and discover she’s cleared me out completely.”

“Of course that won’t happen.” Constance covered Ananais’ hands with her own. She regretted the fact she was wearing gloves, but they’d scandalized the crowd enough without her exposing bare palms on a table where customers ate. “She came up to me despite the fact I’m alien simply because she wanted to know where I got the book. And someone who loves books that much would take one look at you and know they were in the company of a kindred spirit. She will be very hard to get rid of.”

Ananais smiled. “I sincerely hope so. And I want you to meet her. Properly, I mean. Perhaps at the end of the week.”

“Only if we can’t make it earlier. I look forward to seeing the two of you together. If we can all get our noses out of our books long enough to make conversation, that is.”

“We can only try our best.”

Constance chuckled. “You said she was waiting for you to bring back a midday meal?” She took out her order tablet. “What would you like?”

#

Three days later, Ceanan invited Ananais to a bard show. After spending every day that week in the bookshop, she thought it might be fun to partake of Tauzi’s more traditional storytelling technique. They arrived early to ensure good seats, positioned so they had a clear view of the barren stage. When the lights went down, Ceanan reached across the arm of her seat and took Ananais’ hand. She looked for a reaction that would let her know the touch was unwelcome, but Ananais merely smiled and spread her fingers so Ceanan could link with them.

The first bard stepped on-stage and the crowd quieted as he began his tale. It was fine, but Ceanan soon grew anxious and unsettled in her seat. When he reached a quiet portion, while the rest of the crowd applauded politely, Ceanan leaned close to whisper in Ananais’ ear.

“You and your books have ruined me for this.”

“I’m sorry.”

Ceanan smiled and shook her head, squeezing Ananais’ hand before leaning back in her own seat. When the second break came and Ceanan looked no less uncomfortable, Ananais suggested they leave early and take a walk. Ceanan agreed, and they slipped out with the other audience members on their way to take elimination breaks. Ananais took Ceanan’s hand and ushered her toward the exits. 

“Do you want to go?”

“I would much rather spend the time with you than wasting it with this farce.”

Ananais’ heart soared, and she held tighter to Ceanan as they left the building. They walked together through the city with no destination in mind. Ananais was happy to wander, but soon she realized Ceanan was growing weary. She suggested finding a brio and hiring it to take them both home. Ceanan perked up at the offer but changed it slightly. “Perhaps we could hire a brio and simply take it to your building. Or mine. I’m not choosy. And I’d like you to be comfortable when we get there.”

Ananais tried not to look over-eager. “Why? What will happen when we get there?”

“What I’ve been hoping will happen since I met you. Is that all right? Do you think it’s too soon to take that step?”

“No.” Ananais brought Ceanan’s hand to her lips and kissed the tip of her index finger affectionately. “I’m only grateful I wasn’t the one to bring it up. We can go to my home.”

She hailed a brio and gave him directions to her building. When they were isolated in the backseat, Ceanan touched Ananais’ cheek until she turned to face her. Ceanan smiled in the darkness, her features briefly illuminated by the passing green-and-orange lights of the city. Ananais felt as if the flickers were purposeful, as if even light couldn’t bear to stay on her face very long before it was forced to turn away. She brought her hand up and touched Ceanan’s bottom lip with her thumb.

“Sia,” she whispered, using the diminutive of Ceanan’s name for the first time.

“Nyus.”

They kissed as the word left Ceanan’s mouth. Ceanan rested her hands on Ananais’ collar, two fingers on her warm skin and the other two curling in the smooth material of the blouse she’d chosen for their date. Ananais turned to face her fully, pulling back so that her tongue brushed Ceanan’s top lip. Ceanan retreated, relaxing back against the seat, pulling Ananais closer to her and urging her to settle on top of her. Ananais lifted her leg and settled on Ceanan’s lap, then leaned back and stroked the hair back out of Ceanan’s face.

“If we do this, you should know that I’m not comfortable at being the aggressor. I will, because of how badly I want you.” Her breath caught on the admission, but she swallowed back the urge to shut up and carried on. “But I’m not terribly good at it.”

Ceanan smiled and used two fingers to stroke the column of Ananais’ neck. “I understand. To be fair, I’m not exactly submissive.” She brushed her hand along the collar of Ananais’ blouse. “You know how Amarim soldiers are, one of the reasons this place is so crowded when they get permissive leave. They fetishize the unusual. Perhaps it’s due to their coalition including so many planets, but they are as non-xenophobic a race as I’ve ever encountered. They saw me as a conquest to be won. ‘A piece of red.’ I resisted them, and most were easily dissuaded. But it was a constant tide which I had to push against. And now I’m home, and there’s a woman I want, and it is very, very nice to simply surrender to you, Nyus.”

Ananais smiled and kissed her again, pressing Ceanan into the plush lining of the bench seat. Now that she knew the reasoning, it was easier for her to take the lead. Ceanan made a noise of approval and moved her hands down to encircle Ananais’ waist. Her knees dug into the seat on either side of Ceanan’s hips, her toes curling in her boots as their explored each other. Ananais moved a hand between them and undid one of the lower buttons on Ceanan’s blouse. She broke the kiss and looked into Ceanan’s eyes, worked a finger into the gap, and brushed the tip of her finger against the smooth dimple of her navel.

Ceanan stiffened and pressed up against the crux of Ananais’ legs. “ _Hur rhaid!_ ” She closed her eyes and moved her hand to grip Ananais’ wrist. “Touch me. I want you to touch me there.” Ananais watched her face and circled the perimeter of her navel, her mouth dry as she thought about kissing her there, her finger trembling as it dipped back inside. Ceanan pointed her chin to the ceiling and bared her small, square teeth. She pushed Ananais’ hand away and then grabbed a handful of her shirt. 

“I don’t want this to end too swiftly. So you have to stop touching me there.”

“I understand.” She pushed Ceanan back down with a roll of her hips, kissing her as Ceanan writhed underneath her.

They kissed and explored until the brio pulled to a stop, Ananais paying the driver before taking Ceanan’s hand. She led her upstairs, hurrying across the room to tug the blinds down over the window. She didn’t hazard a look across at Constance’s apartment; she wanted to be able to assume her friend was not home. It would be easier to relax if she didn’t think of her friend just a few feet away. She turned to see Ceanan was watching her and she explained quietly, “I have a neighbor. A friend. Oh! Constance. I don’t want her to interrupt.”

“Neither do I. Come here, Nyus.”

Ananais crossed the room and they kissed again. It was tender and sweet, a far cry from their heated collisions in the brio, and Ananais stroked Ceanan from the back of her head, down over her hair, across her back, and down to the curve of her rear-end. Ceanan improved her posture and the slight difference in their heights became unnoticeable, her heels rising off the floor as turned her head so that their mouths fit together more perfectly.

Finally they parted and Ananais looked past Ceanan, toward the back of the apartment. She kissed Ceanan’s cheek and then brushed it with hers. “Come with me.”

“Are you taking me to your stall?”

Ananais smiled shyly. “Don’t you want to go?”

“At the moment, more than anything else in the world.”

Ananais linked their fingers and pulled Ceanan along with her. She didn’t turn on any lights until she reached the bathing chamber, pushing her finger over a dial that raised the illumination from stand-by to full. The stall was a mostly-glass enclosure, circular in shape, with a modesty screen that started at waist height. Small fountainheads circled the perimeter of the stall aimed down at the center, which was where the occupant or occupants stood. Ananais stepped inside to prime the spray, setting the temperature and stepping back out as the water heated.

Ceanan remained by the door, but she had unbuttoned her blouse to reveal her underclothes. Ananais stepped out of her shoes and swallowed the lump in her throat as Ceanan approached her. They touched palms, brushed cheeks, and then kissed again. Ceanan’s tongue thrust between Ananais’ lips just as the stall timer sounded. Water began to spray from the multiple heads, splattering against the glass. Ceanan broke the kiss but put her hand on Ananais’ shoulder to keep her where she was. Both of their blouses were open by that point, and Ceanan kissed a line down the dark red center of Ananais’ chest until she was kneeling, her lips hovering just in front of Ananais’ navel.

Ananais closed her eyes and held her breath, eyes closed, and she embarrassed herself by yelping when Ceanan’s tongue softly touched the smooth tear-drop shape of her navel. She bit her bottom lip to avoid further outbursts, weaved Ceanan’s hands around her fingers, and focused on the slender point of Ceanan’s tongue as it teased and explored.

While Ceanan kissed her stomach, Ananais managed to get her pants unbuttoned and hooked her thumbs in the waistband. Ceanan noticed the movement and helped her get them down. Ananais whispered a thank-you as she stepped out of them. Bending forced Ceanan to abandon her assault, and Ananais took the opportunity to retreat into the stall. Her skin was immediately soaked, her underwear turned transparent by water that was just a touch too cold. She anticipated wanting it colder in a few seconds. She used both hands to push her hair out of her face and watched as Ceanan undressed and joined her. Ceanan wrapped three fingers of her left hand in Ananais’ hair and brought it to her face. She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes.

“I have missed the smell of home. You smell gorgeous, Nyus.”

Ananais put her face in Ceanan’s hair and breathed. “Sia...”

They stroked each other in the deluge. Ananais barely noticed when Ceanan shed her underwear and she found herself standing nude in front of someone else for the first time in years. The stall had two curved benches for the purposes of intercourse, and Ananais lowered Ceanan to one of them. Ceanan pulled Ananais on top of her, the water spilling over her curves and pooling on Ceanan’s body. It shimmered between her breasts, droplets shining on her nipples, and a pool quickly filling in her navel. Ananais stooped down and slurped it up, making Ceanan buck and twist underneath her. She pressed her tongue flat against Ceanan’s stomach and made waves with it, and after a moment Ceanan growled and roughly shoved her lower.

Ananais kissed the twin lines of hair that framed Ceanan’s sex, her bottom lip trembling as it dragged over the folds of her labia.

“ _Polid_ , how are you doing that?”

Ananais took advantage of the happy accident, holding her parted and trembling lips just near enough that the vibrations transferred to Ceanan’s sex. After a moment she firmed her lips and flicked her tongue forward, making Ceanan rise up off the bench. Ceanan’s hand tightened on her shoulder and she cried out in pleasure. Moisture built between Ceanan’s lips, pearlescent white beads, and she lapped them up before the stall’s water could spirit it away.

Ceanan pushed herself up on her elbows, face speckled with water, and she drew Ananais to her. Their lips and tongues were reacquainted as Ceanan sat up, pulling Ananais into position. She put her feet on the tile floor of the stall and she guided Ananais on her lap facing away. Ananais leaned forward but Ceanan’s arm around her waist kept her from sliding off her slick thighs. Ceanan kissed her shoulders and the back of her neck, making ornate shapes with her tongue as she flattened her hand between Ananais’ thighs and began to massage with all four fingers.

Ananais cried out as soon as Ceanan’s smallest finger pushed inside of her. She hadn’t been touched sexually for such a long time that it took effort not to complete. She reached back with both hands and gripped Ceanan’s slippery thighs for support. A second finger and then a third slipped inside of her, lubricated by the moisture of the stall and by her own excitement. Ceanan kissed the bumps of Ananais’ spine, then buried her face in the weedy tangle of wet hair that hung over Ananais’ shoulders.

When Ananais came, her right hand slipped and she raked her fingernails along Ceanan’s hip hard enough to leave marks. She gasped an apology, and she just barely heard Ceanan reply, “No... mark me,” over the whisper of the water. She turned her face toward the spray and let it wash over her cheeks to disguise her tears, her thighs closed tight around Ceanan’s hand as her inner muscles relaxed and the post-coital pleasure washed through her.

Ceanan drew Ananais upright and then back against her, kissing her neck and holding her tightly as the aftershocks made her tremor.

“It’s been a long time,” Ceanan whispered.

“Yes.”

“I meant for me.”

Ananais smiled and twisted until they could kiss again. The water trickled down the arc of Ananais’ nose and over their lips. 

“Do you want to go to bed?” Ananais whispered.

Ceanan shook her head. “Not yet. I want to stay here in case the mood strikes again.”

“We could always follow the urge in bed.”

“Ah, kinky.” 

Ananais smiled. Of all the names she’d been called in the past, kinky had never been much-used. She had a feeling Ceanan would bring it out in her. Sex in the bed, the kitchen, the main room’s floor, on the balcony where the whole world could see... where Constance could watch... A violent shudder passed through her at that thought and she chuckled self-consciously.

“What are you thinking about?”

“Locking up the shop and making love to you amid my books,” Ananais said.

Ceanan moaned. “You’re a caution, Nyus.”

Ananais lifted off her lover’s lap and took her hand. She turned off the shower, lowered herself to the cool, wet tile of the floor, and let Ceanan lie on top of her. They linked arms, their legs threaded together, and Ceanan’s head resting on Ananais’ chest. Ananais wanted to stay awake and listen to Ceanan’s sleep-breathing, but she was quickly asleep with a weary smile stuck on her face.


	8. Chapter 8

Constance held the porous bag of leaves in the hot water and stared through the kitchen window at Ananais’ closed shade. Things had been going well with Ceanan, they’d been spending time together in the shop, Ananais was coming by Caesura more frequently just to smile and babble about the wonderful new woman in her life. She credited Constance with making their relationship happen, which made Constance feel wonderful. But if something had gone wrong... if Ceanan had broken her heart or gone cold, would Ananais also _blame_ her for their introduction? The shade had never been closed in her experience. Maybe a half-length, to block out the sun, but never all the way down.

When she finished her brew, she stood up and climbed onto the balcony. She crossed to Ananais’ side and rapped gently on the glass. She crouched, one arm across her knees and the other hanging in preparation for another knock. She chewed on her lip, still nude of berry juice since she hadn’t bothered after waking up and discovering the shade drawn. She knocked thrice more, growing more despondent with each one. She prayed her friend would let her through this dark time. _Please don’t blame me for your broken heart, Nyus. I can take a lot of things, but not your hatred._

Finally the shade rose. Ananais peered out at her with sleep-bleary eyes, her hair oddly wet on one side. She was wearing a misbuttoned but fancy-looking blouse and a pair of underpants. She pushed up the glass and blinked in the sunlight.

“What’s wrong?”

“You tell me. You’re the one with the shade drawn. Nyus, if something happened--”

Her eye was drawn by movement in the corridor and her voice died. Ceanan was wearing a robe, her hair bundled back in a ponytail, and her robe was loosely-tied enough that Constance could see the bare skin of her central chest. 

“Everything okay, _k’ivkiz_?”

“Fine... yes.”

Ceanan smiled. “Okay. Bright day, Constance.”

“Very bright, it would seem,” Constance said. “Lovely to see you again.”

“And you as well. I owe you a drink of gratitude.” She looked at Ananais, and Constance was thrilled to see true adoration in her features. “Nyus, I’ll wait for you in the stall.”

Ananais’ cheeks darkened, but she nodded. “I won’t be long.”

When she was gone, Constance chuckled quietly. “I won’t make a liar of you. I was just afraid that... well. Ludicrous now. Congratulations.”

Ananais leaned out and pressed her cheek tightly against Constance’s. “I’ll never repay you for sending her to my shop. But I shall try every day.”

Constance kissed her friend’s cheek. “Just keep your eyes peeled for a strapping young Meallar man with a large _vika_.”

“Stance!” 

“Don’t play that virginal _rhaid_ with me! You’re an experienced woman now.” She winked and pinched Ananais’ earlobe. “Go on. Your stall is getting cold. Better go get it warmed up.”

“Have a lovely day, Constance.”

“May it be half as lovely as your morning.” She winked and stood, crossing back over the balcony to her own apartment. She chuckled as she climbed back inside. She paused and looked back at the already-closed shade. “She better give me every Tarzan book in existence for this.” Laughing she went to dress for her shift.

#

Over the next few days, Constance finished the first Tarzan novel and began to slowly make her way through the next. She didn’t want to hope there was a third and, even if there was, she didn’t know if Ananais had a copy or if it was translated yet. She didn’t want to ask and look greedy, so she savored the unexpected sequel. She stopped reading at work so it would last longer, taking her time with each chapter. Sometimes she would read on the balcony, distracted by Ananais’ dark apartment. Sometimes she brought Ceanan home with her - and in that event Constance always gave them privacy - but Ananais also spent time at her new lover’s home. 

Constance was sat on the balcony, her feet tucked under her, so absorbed in her book that she was startled by the sound of the window to her right pushing up. She watched with surprised glee as Ananais placed a bag of flatwheat on the balcony, added a bottle of wine, and then climbed out to join her. She paused before straightening up and acted as if she would go back inside.

“If you would rather read...”

“Get out here, fool!” She put down her book so quickly she didn’t bother marking her place. She embraced her friend and smiled at the familiar smell of her. “I’ve missed you. Although I suppose I can’t complain about the reason for your absence. The light inside of you is shining out.” She rubbed her cheek against Ananais’, making up for the times they had missed, and then stepped back to let her breathe. “You must tell me everything. Or everything fit for sharing.”

Ananais grinned and stooped to retrieve their snacks. They soaked the flatwheat and folded it into quarters before they began eating. Ananais looked out over the city with a dreamy smile. 

“I’ve missed this view. And the company.”

“It’s given me more time to read.” She took a bite of her snack and let it dissolve on her tongue. She was willing to let Ananais take her time, but she was eager to hear everything she had to share.

Finally Ananais took a drink and set the bottle down. “Sia is amazing. Absolutely amazing. I can’t start believing she wants to be with me. She’s required to be at the chronicle offices most days, but when she can get away she’s in the shop with me. She just sits quietly and reads while I work. Somehow her presence is enough for me. I hope I make her as happy as she has made me.”

Constance said, “Ananais, you are more than enough for anyone. I’ve never imagined myself with a woman, but I was willing to test the theory with you. You’re an amazing woman. And beautiful.”

“Ceanan has taken that cause upon herself. I wake and hear her whispering it in my ear and I feel so loved. She can always tell when I’ve woken, and she stops, but I hear the echo sometimes.” She reached up and lightly touched her left ear. “We’ve been spending almost every night together.”

“I’ve noticed. Your apartment has been dreary and dark. If I didn’t know the cause I would have been depressed.”

“You can thank Ceanan for my presence this evening. She suggested a visit so I could invite you to her home for a proper introduction.”

“Yes! I barely remember the woman I sent to your shop lo those many days past. I need to replace the half-naked image I have of her coming out of your bedroom.”

Ananais covered her mouth and smiled. “She asked me to apologize for that.”

“I’m sure she did.” Constance looked at Ananais, and they both started laughing. “You know what it was, right? Her coming into the room like that?”

Ananais shook her head.

“Proof of ownership. She heard you speaking with me and wanted to assert dominance over another potential female mate.”

“I’m... I’m sure she meant nothing of the sort!”

“It’s fine! She may not even have known that she was doing it. It’s a primal instinct. We want to protect what we perceive as ours. She wanted to let me know she had claimed you.” She looked at her friend. “You may think you need to prove yourself worthy to her, but in her mind she is the one playing catch-up. Trust my outsider perspective.”

Ananais said, “I will take your word for it.”

Constance reached over and patted Ananais’ knee. They ate in silence for a moment before Ananais asked what was happening in Constance’s life.

“Nothing as exciting as yours, I assure you. Mostly just reading. The book is phenomenal, though. I was wondering if you knew how many Tarzan books there were in total.”

Ananais shook her head. “I could ask the man who has been keeping me supplied since my father’s death. He brings new books from Earth when he passes through every few frames, and I could ask if he’s aware.”

“Thank you. Mostly it’s been working at Caesura and waiting to see if you would ever emerge from your cocoon of bliss.” She rubbed Ananais’ arm. “I’m happy you did. And I would be very pleased to attend your inamorata’s get-together. Any night is available.”

“Tomorrow?”

Constance nodded. “The sooner the better. But for tonight, is it just the two of us?”

“Just like old times.”

“Good. I can be happy for you and jealous of Ceanan at the same time.”

Ananais chuckled and nodded as she finished her first piece of flatwheat, chewing it as she watched the suns descend toward the horizon.

#

The panic didn’t truly set in until the next day when Constance was getting dressed to meet Ananais and Ceanan at the shop so they could continue on to Ceanan’s home. She opened a drawer and saw the folded pairs of white gloves along the side and ran her finger over the material. A part of her knew she should take them, another part insisted they were unnecessary, and she wondered if the entire evening would be an exercise in discomfiture. She sat on the edge of the bed, eyes hazy as the membrane covered them.

The man at the desk was as wide as three of her siblings standing side-by-side, hunched over a thin glass tablet. He barely looked up as Constance was led into his office, ignoring both her and the stern woman until he finished what he was doing. He finally looked up, let his eyes skip over Constance, and then turned an angry glare on the stern woman.

“It’s _blue_.”

“For the price you paid, you’re lucky she’s not human,” the woman said. Constance had never heard that last word before, but from the tone she was glad she wasn’t it. “I brought you what you asked for.”

“In name only.” He looked at Constance again. “Does it speak?”

Constance said, “Yes...”

“I wasn’t talking to you, _z’cek_.” It was years before Constance knew the term referred to a buffoonish character in bard’s tales. She was Z’cek for the first five years on Tauzi and she accepted the mockery because she thought it was a simple nickname. He stood up, impressively hefting his bulk up and maneuvering around the desk with a grace she never would have expected from him. He stepped in front of her and leaned forward.

He pushed a thick finger between her lips and felt her teeth. Constance resisted the urge to bite and withstood the odd violation. 

“How long ago was she born?”

“Five framesets.”

“Suns. You do push the limitations, Lanell.” He sighed heavily and looked into her eyes. “Five. Blue. Do you realize how desperate they will have to be for a five-frameset blue child?”

Lanell moved her head in a way that implied disinterest. “They aren’t my concern. You are. I care about how desperate you are, Dulloc. I didn’t see many wailing Tauzetti infants on your doorstep. How has business been lately?”

“You’re a thief, Lanell.”

“And you will pay me my due or I’ll take this blue thing, as you derisively call her to someone who will appreciate the gesture.”

Dulloc grimaced and raised back up. He waddled behind the desk and took out a chit scanner. There was more of the conversation but Constance hadn’t paid attention. She’d focused on the circulator above the desk, the grime on the windows, the pictures of smiling red-faced Tauzetti children, the buzzing things swirling in the corners of the room as they built their nests. The man and woman stopped talking and Constance looked up at the stern woman.

“When do I get to go home?”

Lanell backhanded her hard enough that she fell down. The man Dulloc protested at her bruising his property, but Lanell ignored him and walked out. Constance never saw the mean woman again. Five hours later her skin was daubed with red in a futile attempt to make her look Tauzetti, but her skin developed a rash and her throat closed from the reek of the oils. She nearly died, she realized later. Dulloc kept her in his office like a mascot or pet, always hoping that someone would come in and see she was immediately available and offer to take her.

She opened her eyes and looked around the room as if she had just woken up. The Meallar recall ability didn’t recreate physical sensations, but her cheek stung as if it had been slapped moments earlier. From everything she’d seen, Ceanan was not a xenophobe. She had approached in the restaurant, after all, and seemed to have no issue with Ananais being friends with her. But in her experience someone could be friendly and polite out in the world and wear another face entirely in private. What if Ceanan didn’t like a Meallar in her home? Would there be special settings with silverware she knew would be discarded as soon as she left?

She went back to the drawer and withdrew a pair of satin-lined gloves. They could be removed easily-enough, and they looked fancy enough that she could claim they were simply part of her outfit if anyone questioned it.

She pinned up her hair and covered it with a cerise wrap. She checked her jacket to make sure the collar was straight and left the apartment.

When she arrived at the shop she could see Ceanan and Ananais through the front glass. She stopped and retreated before they noticed her, moving closer to the wall. Ananais had her back to Ceanan, head bowed to read the spines of the books she had cradled against her left side. Ceanan was seated at one of the reading tables, a book open in front of her, but her gaze was locked on Ananais. She wasn’t exactly smiling, but her face was peaceful and content in a way that made Constance feel terribly lonely. 

Ananais turned and, the spell broken, Ceanan dropped her eyes back to the page. Ananais glanced toward her, smiled, and went to continue shelving her books.

Constance finally broke from cover and entered the shop. Ceanan looked up and greeted her with two raised fingers.

“ _Sunna_ again!”

“ _Sunna_.” She stopped short of a proper greeting, but Ceanan rose and brushed her cheek against Constance’s. Before she could pull away, Constance whispered, “I saw you watching her just now.”

“Oh...”

“You have my blessing. I entrust my friend’s heart to you.”

“Oh.” Ceanan looked away when they parted, and she tucked her hair behind her ears. “I’m glad. I know how close you and Nyus are.”

“Sia? Do we have a customer... Stance! You’re early.”

“I’m late, actually.” Constance lifted an eyebrow in question. “Did you say _we_? ‘Do we have a customer’?”

Ceanan shrugged. “She decided that as long as I’m here all the time I might as well help stock and assist with purchases. I mainly keep track of the books she’s sold so she can produce another.”

“In addition to having freedom to read whatever books she wants for free.”

Constance said, “Aha! A scam uncovered. Your dastardly plan will fail after all.”

“Drat and _sh’z’k_ ,” she said. “I suppose I have to give up my hopes for riches and gold and settle for the consolation prize: the love and appreciation of the most beautiful woman upon which I’ve ever laid eyes.”

Ananais reached up and swatted at the air in front of both cheeks, her head coyly turned away from them. “Be quiet, both of you. I’ll close up shop and then we will be gone.”

They left the Tower together and walked a short distance to the brio dispensary. Ceanan hired a transport to take them to her home. Ceanan’s building was a rounded peg of a tower, with arced apartments clinging to the side of a central spire. They rode an exterior elevator up to the penultimate floor, and Ceanan scanned her palm to unlock her home. The interior room was wedge-shaped with the majority of space near the windows that overlooked the city. Constance moved closer and smiled when she spotted the Tower.

“How long did it take you to figure out where the Commerce ring was?”

Ceanan said, “One day. Alas, Ananais’ shop is on the other side. But I still glance out when I pass, as if I could catch a glimpse at this distance.” She unfastened the belt that cinched her coat around her waist and wrapped it around a wall-peg as she went into the kitchen. “We’ll begin with sweetstones and seasoned _qeppa_ strips, then a meal of noodles and sauce. Savory or sweet? I know being Meallar you may have some food sensitivities.”

Constance took the offer as it was intended and smiled graciously. “I was raised here, on a Tauzi diet. I’m fine with whatever you prepare and however you prepare it.”

“Okay. I pre-cooked most of it, so it shouldn’t take very long. Get comfortable. Take off your shoes and relax.”

Constance sat on the living room divan and bent forward to take off her shoes as instructed. Ananais touched her arm and leaned down so she could speak quietly to her. “Ceanan has spent the last eighteen frames living and working alongside Amarim soldiers. Did you really think she would be xenophobic?”

“I did. I have to constantly assume people are.” She sighed. “I don’t like that I do, but--”

“No. I suppose I understand. But hopefully she’s proven herself.”

Constance nodded emphatically. “Yes. The problem is obviously mine and, knowing that, I will endeavor to overcome it.” She gripped Ananais’ hand and leaned in to lower her voice even further. “The doubts you have, the uncertainty about her? Release them. I’ve seen the way she looks at you when she thinks no one is observing her. You are adored, Ananais Stone.”

Ceanan came in from the kitchen with their appetizers. “They gather and conspire and fervid gossip that burns the ears of those victimized.”

“I didn’t know you were a poetry fan,” Constance said.

“Before I met Nyus poetry was all I could read. I had to translate the English myself as I read, and trying to keep it all straight hurt my head too much to focus on the story. But I could manage for short pieces.” She served up their plates and then sat next to Ananais, across from Constance. “Once I got hooked on the Earth poetry, I found Tauzetti poetry to be even more beautiful.” She glanced down. “You can take off your gloves if you wish, Constance.”

She had forgotten she was wearing them. “Oh. Thank you. I decided to err on the side of caution.”

“You never have to worry about such things with me.”

Ananais tapped the corner of her plate. “Shall we begin?”

Constance nodded, grateful she worked at a restaurant where she could observe Tauzi dining customs. The sweetstones were round fruits with a rough green skin that protected succulent inner meat. Each plate had four ‘stones cut into quarters, the space between the wedges filled with twisted and still sizzling _qeppa_ meat. Four pools of sauce were smeared onto the cardinal points of the plate. The women each wrapped a strip of meat around the ‘stone, then reached out to dip it into the sauce of another diner’s plate. Constance used Ananais’ sauce, while Ceanan made a point of using Constance’s. Communal dining was a big part of Tauzetti culture. Certain dishes were served in a single bowl in the center of the table. It was also one of the main reasons Constance was rarely invited to join Tauzetti people at the dinner table. Snacking with Ananais was one thing, but a true dinner was something special.

When they finished the appetizers, Ceanan went to retrieve the main course. She came back with a large plate of noodles swimming in a thick sauce, and she sat it in the middle of the table where they could all share. 

“Ceanan,” Constance said before they began eating, “I wanted to thank you for inviting me tonight. For making me feel welcome, making me a part of what you and Ananais have.”

Ceanan hesitated, looked at Ananais, and said, “That’s certainly not what I’m doing.”

“Oh. Pardon. I simply--”

“No. I only mean that this dinner is a way to curry favor with you. From the beginning I’ve known what a special friendship you have with Nyus. I know that in order to win her completely I must also win you over. I didn’t invite you over to welcome you into a fold. I invited you in the hopes you would accept me into yours.”

Constance was unspeakably touched. She started to say something, looked down at her plate, and then shook her head. 

“I don’t like her, Nyus,” Constance finally said. “She is far too devious and must not be trusted at any cost.”

Ananais said, “My vote counts for more than yours. And Ceanan votes for herself. So you are overruled, my friend.”

“ _Rhaid_.” She looked at Ceanan. “You know she’s only voting for you because you wash with her.”

“I would hope so,” Ceanan said. “That means I’m doing a good job in the stall.”

Constance smiled warmly and lifted her glass. “Then I am willing to change my vote. Welcome, Ceanan Fryss. You make my friend happy, and that is all that I care about.”

They all touched glasses, and then took a drink to seal their new friendship. Constance chuckled, shook her head, and curled her finger around the curved stick she would use to ferry the noodles into her mouth. Now that the tension had dissipated she realized that she was utterly starving.


	9. Chapter 9

“‘But while we are confined to books’,” Ceanan recited softly, her voice a whisper that echoed off the curved glass of the stall, “‘though the most select and classic, and read only particular written languages, which are themselves dialect and provincial, we are in danger of forgetting the language which all things and events speak without metaphor, which alone is copious and standard.’” She worried her bottom lip with her teeth and frowned a long moment at the page before she twisted her neck to look up at Ananais. “Do you understand any of that?”

“Yes.” They were curled together in the stall, Ceanan’s head against the bend of Ananais’ hip. Ananais was bent almost in half, a semi-circle enclosing her lover. “It means that there is beauty in the world that cannot be explained or quantified, and attempting to do so takes away some of its majesty.” She stroked Ceanan’s hair. “When you were with the Amarim, out there in the Wander, I’m sure you saw magnificent things. I dream of one day seeing the stars close enough I could touch them. But if you tried to describe what you saw...”

“Mm. I suppose I see it. This book is difficult.”

“Try translating it.” She kissed Ceanan’s stomach. “There are easier books in my shop. A man named Seuss wrote some that are very short with very easy words.”

Ceanan giggled and skimmed the rest of the page. “I just prefer a little more action in my stories. But this is the book you wanted, and I said I would read to you.”

“Yes, you did. And it’s not boring when you’re reading it.”

“Mm.” 

Ananais lifted her head and lightly probed Ceanan’s navel with her tongue. Ceanan moaned and closed her eyes. “Unfair. How am I meant to concentrate with you teasing me?”

“Try.”

Ceanan lifted the book to block Ananais’ actions, as if out of sight equaled out of mind, and swallowed a lump in her throat before she continued reading. “‘Will you be a reader, a student merely, or a seer? Read your fate, see what is before you, and walk on into futurity.’ Why did you stop?”

Ananais kissed the flat space between Ceanan’s navel and her breasts. “You were sounding a bit breathless there at the end. Perhaps we should save the reading for bed.”

“Perhaps we should...”

Ananais took the book from Ceanan, closed it on her placeholder ribbon, and stretched to put it outside the stall. She closed the door, stood on her knees to turn on the water, and then straddled Ceanan’s body. The spray hit her on the shoulder and cascaded down her breasts, over her stomach, and rained down onto Ceanan. Ananais looked down and smiled as Ceanan propped herself up on her elbows, closed her eyes, and let herself be covered by the downpour.

#

The game began with each player receiving three character cards, and on each card was a different personage. The card included a full-bodied depiction of their character, a list of their strengths and weaknesses, and a vague biography that occupied the space beneath the character’s feet. Most of the characters were depicted as androgynous, but occasionally a gender was apparent. They tended to be female, but every now and then a woman would be forced to play a male.

In the center of the table were three stacks of action cards. Constance examined the three cards in front of her: Inydias and Adavoa, who were minor infiltrators at best, and as her high-profile card she had Syvin. Two weak thieves and a chef, and two of them were clearly males. At least she could feed her criminals. She eyed Ananais’ cards as she drew an action from the center stack. All three of her characters were Keepers of Law. Across from Ananais, Ceanan had three string characters that could be used by either side.

“Ai, you better watch your back, Nyus,” she said as she examined the card she’d drawn. “Your lady and I may end up joining forces to take you out.”

“Your method of seduction will have to be more appealing than mine.”

Ceanan laughed. “That is a tall order, Stance. Do you think you’re up to it?”

Constance waggled her eyebrows. “I can be quite devious when victory is on the line.” They each drew their allotment of action cards before they began to play. Ananais passed a card to Constance which indicated the law was aware of her criminal activities. In response she used her ‘Fifth Column’ card to get Syvin employed as chef for the Keepers of Law. All she had to do was draw a ‘Strike’ card and she could poison their meals.

“Looks like you weren’t joking, Stance. Dark turn.”

“We do what we must in order to win.”

Ceanan chuckled. “Don’t worry, Nyus. If she gets too full of herself we can always team up to knock her down a few pegs.”

“I will destroy you both.” She ruined whatever impact the threat may have held by smiling as she said it. The game was called Scheme, and victory was achieved by throwing the other players into disarray. There could technically be three winners; if Ananais turned Constance’s personages into informers and convinced Ceanan to play her side, they would all win. However, if Constance succeeded in seducing Ceanan to criminality to foil the Keepers of Law, they would share victory over Ananais. Despite her threats, however, she anticipated making it very easy for them to team up against her. She really enjoyed watching them conspire together.

They had been a couple for nearly two frames, and the relationship had meshed with their normal routines. Ananais was home almost every other night so they could enjoy their routine on the balcony. Constance offered to find a third seat so Ceanan could join them but Ceanan refused saying that it was their private ritual. She didn’t want to be a third wheel, and Constance was grateful to her for that.

Once the game got into full swing, Ceanan glanced across the table at Ananais. “In the spirit of ganging up against each other, perhaps Constance can help sway you on what we’ve been discussing.”

Ananais looked up at her, then looked at Constance, and lowered her eyes to the table. “Perhaps now isn’t the best opportunity.”

“Seems fine to me.” She laid down a card and assassinated Adavoa. Constance glared playfully at her, and Ceanan blinked rapidly at her in mockery. “I’ve been trying to convince her to scribe.”

“She has been,” Constance said. “The nights when she’s home, I’ve seen her with books open in front of her. No worries. The stock of ‘your’ shop won’t suffer.”

“Not transcribing, translating. I want her to scribe her own story. I want her to write a book of her own.”

Constance perked up. “That would be amazing!”

Ananais was already shaking her head. “I’m no scrivener. I only echo what is on the page in front of me. I do none of it myself.”

“That’s untrue,” Constance said. “You alter the stories so they’ll make sense to a Tauzi reader. I doubt the original author intended for Tarzan to live in the wilds of Rualeth. And yet I can’t imagine it taking place anywhere else because of how you brought it to life. I’ve never even been to Rualeth and I could smell the mulch on the ground and smell the humidity in the air. You made it real.”

Ceanan said, “And every character I read, I envision as Tauzetti. Red skinned, dark-eyed, and I know that’s thanks to your descriptiveness.”

Ananais was shaking her head. “But I only build on what others have written before me. To write a book I would have to start from scratch with nothing but blank paper. I wouldn’t even know where to begin. And the time it would take to write an entire story! I would have to think of everything myself. The characters? The dialogue? It would take away valuable time I could be spending with a transcription. But thank you for believing in me. Both of you.”

Constance had to admit the argument was valid. Still, now that the idea had been planted, she wasn’t planning to let Ananais give up so easily.

They played out their round of cards - two of Constance’s people died, with the last surrendering to Ananais’ law forces, giving Ananais the win - and moved into Ceanan’s living room to have a snack and talk. Ananais and Ceanan sat on the long chaise, with Ceanan stretching out to lay her head on Ananais’ lap. Ananais idly stroked her partner’s flowing hair, and fed her juicy _beadlets_. The Amarim forces had been back to Caesura, and Constance shared horror stories of their behavior.

Ceanan, wincing as she already knew the answer, said, “They talk about you as a blue piece, don’t they?”

Constance’s cheeks purpled. “They do. I try to tune them out as best I can.”

“It’s all you can do. For what it matters, I do apologize for my part in their license for leisure being renewed.”

“You can’t change their behavior.” Constance put a wafer in her mouth and soaked it with a sip of wine. “Actually, Ananais, if you wanted ample inspiration, you should sit in the restaurant for an afternoon and eavesdrop on the people who come in.”

Ceanan perked up at that idea and tilted her head back to look at Ananais. She licked the juices from her lips before she spoke. “That would certainly be easier than starting from scratch.”

“Mm.” Ananais shrugged and popped a _beadlet_ into her own mouth. “It’s worth a thought. I suppose it’s not much different from reading the English and translating it into Tau. I’d just have to adjust names and circumstances.” She offered Ceanan another _beadlet_ and, when she refused with a shake of her head, popped it into her own mouth.

Constance eyed the clepsydra in the corner and saw the hour had grown late. She smiled and scooted to the edge of her seat.

“I would assume I’m walking home alone tonight.”

Ananais looked conflicted. “If you’d prefer I walk with you...”

Constance chuckled. “No. Please. I couldn’t live with myself if I deprived you of the alternative.” She stood and bent down to brush her cheek against Ceanan’s, then did the same to Ananais. “Stars above you.”

“And above you as well,” Ananais said.

“Next time Ceanan and I are going to take you out.”

Ananais waved her fingers in front of her mouth, indicating a lot of empty words, and Constance laughed as she waved goodbye and showed herself to the door. She had taken off her headscarf and gloves inside Ceanan’s apartment, so she took a moment after leaving to put them back on. She would be okay in the shadowy stretches between the hanging sconces, but when she was illuminated by the glow of a brio station she would have to contend with xenophobes and _tiphif_ -res who would see her blue skin as an invitation to tease and rag on her. Her heart sank as she approached and saw a group of green-skinned Amarim soldiers waiting for a brio.

She couldn’t comprehend their fascination with her. She’d never once been tempted to wash with someone just because they had green skin. She had grown up around Tauzetti people, so their red skin was hardly exotic to her, but still... to harass and objectify her simply because she was “a blue piece”? As far as she was aware, Meallara and Amarim people all copulated the same way. The Vyrr were said to have extraneous genitalia that made the process unique, but there was nothing about the act itself that was unique. It made no sense to her.

One of the soldiers saw her lingering in the penumbra of the spotlight and squinted to get a better look at her. She assumed his attention was drawn mostly to her feminine shape, but his interest became piqued when she saw a hint of blue above her collar. He spoke quietly to his friend and then they began to sing in an off-key warble, mimicking the original Tau lyrics and butchering it.

“ _I saw a girl as blue as the sky, and said hello, and she dragged me to her stall and that was the end. I never knew her name but I had a good time, and later my brother did too, and then my father did too, and I heard my son did too, and my zup did too and my--_ ”

Constance turned and began walking before the second chorus could begin. It was an old bawdy rhyme that all children old enough to giggle about sex had chanted at her during the free periods of class. The “blue girl” of the song lay with the narrator, every male in his family and then the females, before moving on to animals and whatever inanimate objects happened to be lying around. The ‘fun’ came from stretching out the list as long as possible without breaking the wave-on-wave rhythm.

The singing soldier called out that they were sorry for hurting her feelings, and the other soldiers laughed. She hadn’t been hurt; the song stopped hurting when she was old enough to have cycles. She just decided she would prefer the exercise of walking to suffering their japes. She looked back to assure herself none of the soldiers were pursuing her through the dark, the incident in Caesura still fresh in her mind, but they all seemed to have lost interest as soon as she was out of sight.

The tune of the taunt was stuck in her head, so to release it she began humming a song she remembered from her childhood; it was the song her Tauzetti mother had sung to her natural children when she thought Constance was already asleep. In the dark and the quiet under her “sister’s” bed, in the narrow space she was forced to spend her nights, it was easy to believe the song was for her. And again, as always, in the dark of the street, the song once again soothed her nerves as she left the laughing alien soldiers behind her.

#

Ananais and Constance cleaned and then went to the stall to make love. It was more spacious than the stall in Ananais’ apartment, with a wider flare to the middle of the space and an additional bench at a lower angle that allowed for a new way to explore each other. After they dried off and adjourned to bed, Ananais put on her pajamas while Ceanan crawled into bed nude. “I didn’t anticipate you and Stance teaming up on me outside of the game.”

“You obviously love stories and writing. I’m surprised it’s taken you this long to consider writing something of your own.” She paused and worked through it in her head before coming to the natural conclusion. “You have tried.”

Ananais got into bed. “It did not go exceptionally well.”

“Oh, darling.” Ceanan rolled toward her, kissing her chin and neck as she stroked through the sleeve of her pajama top. “You should have said something. I might not have pressured you so much. When did you attempt an original?”

“I was young. I had only translated one or two dozen books and I decided the time had come to add my own. But it was a horrific mess of a thing. I hated it. And it made me angry that I couldn’t make it work. I would go into rages that evaporated into depression. Eventually I declared I would not subject myself to that pain again. That is why I make certain the original author receives all the credit on the books I sell. They were capable of finishing a book someone would want to read and I admire them for that.”

Ceanan said, “That was a very long time ago. And if you were to try again, I can assure you at least one reader would finish it no matter how terrible it was.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.” She scooted closer. “I know so much about you, Nyus. I know what you look like sleeping and waking. I know the sounds you make when you sleep. But the inside of your head is one place I cannot peek, and reading something you wrote would give me an insight.”

Ananais grinned. “I assure you, it’s fairly bleak up there. Not much worth seeing.”

“I beg to differ.” She stretched up and kissed Ananais, sliding closer until their legs intertwined. Ananais moaned helplessly as she sagged down, then chuckled when Ceanan let her breathe again. She looked down and watched her lover’s fingers toy with the buttons of her pajama top. “You know, darling, on Earth they often make love in their beds.”

“Kinky heathens.”

Ceanan smiled. “There’s nothing wrong with being a kinky heathen every now and then.”

Ananais shook her head and tried to get comfortable as Ceanan slid her shorts down her legs and then disappeared under the blankets.

“What else do human lovers do?” Ananais asked as she closed her eyes.

When it came, Ceanan’s answer wasn’t vocalized. But Ananais understood regardless.


	10. Chapter 10

Ananais was so accustomed to having Ceanan at the shop that on days she didn’t show up, she found herself doing less work than normal as she kept glancing toward the entrance in the hopes of seeing her lover arrive. She was also translating less quickly than usual. A book that ordinarily would have taken her two or three days would now take eight or nine. She didn’t mind; she had more than enough books to line her shelves even if it took longer to replace the ones her customers took.

When she decided Ceanan wasn’t going to show up that day, Ananais took her work-in-progress translation and the Earth book she was working from her satchel and laid them out side-by-side on her table. It was a horribly complicated book, this _Silas Marner_. Misspellings were rampant, odd words that she spent several minutes trying to sort out through context wound up being bizarrely-spelt versions of common words. She finally decided the author, some clueless sot named George Eliot, was attempting to convey a speech impediment or dialect. 

She put down her pen and rubbed the bridge of her nose, looking again toward the front of the shop in futile hope. To her surprise, Ceanan was on the other side of the glass, smiling when she was caught. It was like a mirage or a trick of tired eyes, a sight so welcome that Ananais first thought she was simply dreaming awake. But then Ceanan waved, and Ananais stood to greet her as she came into the shop.

“Sorry. I checked to make sure I wouldn’t be disturbing you and then I saw you at work and I just... couldn’t help myself.”

Ananais smiled, brushed their cheeks together, and kissed Ceanan’s lips. “I’m very glad to see you. The book I’m working on is frustrating me.”

Ceanan’s smile wavered and she looked down. “I’m afraid I come with bad news.”

Ananais closed her eyes. “So soon? I thought since you spent so long last time...”

“I hoped the same. But another chronicler’s wife is expecting a child and asked for compassionate deference. I could fight it, but it would not make me very popular among my fellows.”

“I understand. It’s your job.”

Ceanan nodded. “It will not be the same as my last trip. I will not spend eighteen frames up there. But I would be lying if I told you it will be brief. At least one frame.”

Ananais could barely stand the hypothetical eighteen-frame separation, but even one frame was enough to make her feel weak in the knees.

“I will miss you strongly.”

“And I you. I depart tomorrow morning.”

Ananais’ eyes widened. “So soon? I just...” She looked around the shop. “I will close.”

“No, no. Please don’t sacrifice your work--”

Ananais put a finger on Ceanan’s lips to silence her. Ceanan kissed the tip of it and obediently quieted. Ananais said, “With you gone, I will be spending many, many hours at the shop for lack of anything else to occupy my time. While I have you I will be with you. This is not negotiable.”

“Then I will not argue with you, my love.”

Ananais leaned in and rested her cheek against Ceanan’s. They embraced silently for a long moment before Ananais whispered in her ear. “You will be safe.”

“Of course. The first thing the grunts do when something dangerous happens is push chroniclers to the back of the room. I’ve never so much as gotten a scratch while I’m on duty.”

Ananais kissed Ceanan’s ear. “Keep it that way. Come inside and give me a moment to close the shop. If I only get one more day with you to last a whole frame, I’m going to make it count.”

#

Constance was stirring a pot of stew when the tapping came on her window. She looked up and saw Ananais, smiled and lifted two fingers in greeting. Her smile faded when she saw the distress on her friend’s face. She put down the spoon, wiped her hands on a towel as she crossed to the window and pushed it open. “Are you okay? You look distraught.”

“Ceanan needed to get some sleep because she has to report before sunsrise. She’s catching a transport back to the aerial base. She’s going back to work.”

“Oh, darling. Come inside.” She took Ananais’ hand and helped her into the apartment. A slouch chair was next to the window and she lowered her friend into it. “I was making stew for dinner, but you look like you could do with something a bit stronger. I can add some _foese_ spice just to calm you down a little bit. Blunt those jangling emotions.”

Ananais nodded. “Thank you, Stance.” She dabbed at her eyes as Constance went into the kitchen to fix the meal. “I told myself I was prepared for this. And I suppose I should take solace in the knowledge that it seems as hard for her to leave as it is for me to be left. But it’s painful.”

“Of course.” She added the spices, illegal in their uncooked form, and stirred well. “Did you get a chance to give her a proper goodbye?”

“We spent the afternoon together. It wasn’t enough, of course, but it sufficed.” She used the long portion of her sleeve to wipe at her eyes. “I’m going to wake up early so I can see her off. She said she’s never had anyone with her at the station, so I feel honored to be the first.”

“That sounds wonderful. The stew will be ready in about ten minutes. Would you like to lie down and rest your eyes?”

Ananais shook her head. “No. Sit with me?”

Constance sat next to her and guided Ananais’ head onto her shoulder. “While she’s gone, I shall do my best to keep you occupied. That is to say, I won’t wash with you...”

Ananais chuckled.

“But if you require a warm body in your bed or someone to sit across from you at dinner, you know where to find me.”

“Thank you, Stance.”

“Of course.”

They sat together, Ananais’ head on her friend’s shoulder, taking comfort from her as the smell of spices filled the air from their dinner.

#

Embedded chroniclers were required to wear a variant of Amarim uniforms. The back of the stiff leather collar extended up to the base of her skull, creating a protective sheath around her ears. Her hair was braided and tucked down the back of her jacket so as not to get in the way. Her gloves were black and had spaces cut out from the fingers so as not to blunt her tactile sensations. Though Ananais could see the blocky shapes through the thin material covering Ceanan’s chest, she still rested her fingers on them to assure herself it was projectile-resistant. Ceanan watched her test it and then cupped the side of her head.

“I’ve never been harmed, even during the last engagement. Sixty-five hundred killed, and not one chronicler casualty.” She kissed the tip of Ananais’ nose and then between her eyebrows. “And that time I didn’t even have something precious to come home to. I will be supremely cautious, my love.”

They kissed, drawing some ignorable hoots and hollers from the other chroniclers making their way to the transport. The Amarim soldiers were queuing for an official military transports nearby. Ananais moved her lips to Ceanan’s ear. “When I look up into the night sky, the stars will be the last thing on my mind, and they will be the second most brilliant thing in the heavens.”

“Nyus.” Ceanan curled her fingers around Ananais’ wrist. She took a breath, exhaled against the shell of Ananais’ ear. While she was still shivering, Ceanan said, “I love you.”

Ananais closed her eyes and bowed her head. “Thank you for your love. I return it thrice.”

They kissed each other on the cheeks and lips, and Ceanan ran her fingers through Ananais’ hair one last time. “I have the books you gave me. I’ll endeavor to read them before I get back.”

“I hope you don’t have the time to even finish one.”

Ceanan smiled. “As do I.” 

Ananais took off her scarf, and Ceanan dipped her chin so it could be draped over the top of her head. Ananais smoothed it down.

“I love you.” She held out her hand and Ceanan dragged her fingernail down the center of her palm. “Come back to me, Ceanan.”

“I will. Stars above you.”

“And above you as well.”

“ _I Once Worshipped the Stars_ ,” Ceanan said. “Jennell Dendre.”

Ananais remembered the poem and touched her love’s cheek. “I feel the same way.”

They parted before they could get caught up in another cycle of farewells. Ananais watched as Ceanan joined the queue, smiling when she turned back. They waved to each other and then Ananais finally turned and walked away.

The departure terminal was a long, low building open to the elements on both the north and south sides. The ships, small as flying fingernails when they were in the air, now looked leviathan as they huddled over the center concourse. Their ramps were lowered for soldiers, chroniclers, medics, pilots, and various other personnel filed aboard. From a distance, due to her uniform, Ceanan soon blended into the crowd as they passed through the premiere checkpoint and approached her ship. 

Ananais walked outside between two columns, head down, trying not to run back and stowaway aboard the transport. She stopped on the steelwalk outside the building, her merchant tunic whipping around her in the downflow from the transport engines. She was considering a walk home, considering whether she should stay and watch the ships take off, or just huddle and cry. She was still debating it - leaning toward cry - when someone slipped their arm around hers. She shrank away from them and relaxed when she recognized Constance.

“I thought you might need an escort.”

Ananais sagged against her. “Take me home, Stance.”

“Sure, Nyus.”

They were almost home when a shadow passed between the suns and the street. They paused and looked up, watching as the fleet of transports - once again tiny against the scope of the sky - carried their precious cargo to the warzone. When they were invisible to the naked eye and their trail became obscured by the clouds, Constance squeezed Ananais’ arm and guided her onward.

#

At the door Constance paused and smiled. “I still find it unusual to enter your home this way. I feel as if I should run next door and climb in through the window.”

“I’ll wait if that’s what you prefer.”

“Shut up and let us in.”

Constance reached to turn on the light, but Ananais asked her to leave it off. “Would you like me to stay? We could take a nap.”

“Thank you, no. I want to be alone.” She gripped Constance’s fingers. “I don’t know how I would have gotten home without your help. Thank you so much.”

“We all need someone to guide us home every now and then.” She kissed Ananais’ cheek and stroked her arm. “Take care of yourself. I’ll come over with midday meal if you’d like.”

“I’ll... I’ll let you know.”

Constance nodded. She left through the window, which made Ananais smile. Once her friend was gone Ananais went into her bedroom and crawled under the blankets. Some of Ceanan’s things were still on the nightstand, and she knew they had left items in the stall. She couldn’t bring herself to go retrieve them so she stayed where she was, feeling weak and lame. Since meeting Ceanan she’d had barely any bad days. Even on days she felt down, there was still the possibility she might see her love. Now Ceanan was off the planet, and it seemed as if she was paying an accrued debt of downward feelings.

She pulled the blankets over her head and hoped that she was just feeling a normal sadness at the departure of the woman she loved. She squeezed her eyes shut and burrowed into the pillow, making quiet whimpering noises as she waited for sleep to take her. Later she dozed, and she heard Constance’s soft and unobtrusive knock on her window when she brought over food, but she couldn’t bring herself to rise and allow her inside. 

Eventually the suns set. When she slept deeply enough to dream she envisioned the transport shuttles exploding, she saw Ceanan taking emergency measures only to slide helplessly into the vacuum of space, lost to her forever. She woke in a cold sweat, unable to catch a breath until she turned on her scanner. It had been so long since last she accessed it that she nearly forgot her Haven ID and password, but she punched them in with trembling fingers. She finally took a break when she saw there were no calamitous updates being reported. 

She went to the bathing room but didn’t enter the stall. She sluiced the sweat from her skin with a hand-sponge, leaving her clothes in the hamper beside the door. Naked but wrapped in a sheet, she walked into the main room. Constance had left a note on the window and she crossed over to read it. 

“Take your time. You know where I am when I’m needed. C.”

Ananais smiled, grateful to have such a friend to help her through the surely-horrid frame to come. Or perhaps longer. A chronicler couldn’t guess how long they would be deployed. She had managed many framesets without Ceanan in her life. Surely she could take a few more weeks. But before she’d had the benefit of not knowing such a person existed. She’d been cursed with the knowledge and couldn’t bear the thought of Ceanan being out there away from her.

With that thought, she realized that perhaps spending a few frames apart would be good for them. She didn’t enjoy the idea of becoming so desperately dependent that she couldn’t bear to be away from Ceanan even overnight. She pushed open the window to let some fresh air into the apartment. She inhaled the night air and then went to the kitchen and searched her cabinets. She found a small plastic box of _zhee_ , their ripe vines tangled around the plump fruit, and she smelled to make sure they were ripe and ready to be eaten before she walked back to the window.

She climbed out, ignoring how her hands shook as she approached Constance’s window. On days when she felt this bleak, this sort of inner-collapse, speaking to someone else seemed like a feat of impossible strength. But she knelt on the opposite side of the balcony that bridged the emptiness between her and Constance and knocked on the window. The apartment was dark, but she made herself not care as she rapped until a light came on.

Constance came out of the bedroom, swaying a bit and squinting when she turned on the main light. She wore a long shimmering nightgown that was split down the middle so it looked as if she was draped by two narrow pyramids that joined behind her neck. She opened the window.

“Nyus. Are you okay?”

She felt oddly as nervous as if they’d never spoken before. “Yes. I was j-just wondering if you wanted to have a bedtime snack.”

Constance seemed to understand the importance of the question. “Yes. I’d like that very much.”

She climbed out and joined Ananais on the balcony. Though it was dark they had a self-conscious moment when they realized just how naked they both were. But Constance tucked her legs underneath her as she sat, draping her lower body with the excess material of her nightgown. Ananais sat as well and made certain the sheet was secure around her before she offered the _zhee_.

“Oh, my! Are they ripe?”

“Of course they are.”

Constance smiled at Ananais’ affronted huff, giggling as she plucked one plump berry up. It trailed the vine and she held her tongue out to lower it carefully into her mouth. She chewed the vine to release its nutrients, then bit hard on the berry to flood her mouth with the juice. The combined tastes were a delicacy, and Constance closed her eyes as she swallowed. 

“Stars,” she murmured. “That is succulent.”

“Have another.”

“No... no, you should save those for Ceanan. They’re too good to waste on the likes of me.”

Ananais shrugged. “That was the plan. I bought them as a surprise for her, but they turn so quickly. By the time she returns...” She sighed. “I bought them to share with a woman I care for very deeply, a woman without whom I would be adrift and lost. And that is exactly what I’m doing.”

Constance blinked back the moisture from her eyes, chuckled, and took another berry. “Well. In that case, with my gratitude.”

Ananais took a berry for herself, holding the mixture in her mouth for a long moment so the tang would remain in her mouth even after the berries were gone. 

“I once worshipped the stars,” she whispered, “and looked upon them wondering which could be mine. I once gazed at the heavens and pointed my small finger to one and then the other.”

Constance smiled, eyes half-closed as she listened to the recitation.

“But now I know the truth. I was not one of the stars in the heaven, I was two. Another light orbited mine, and I never knew until I saw you and felt your warm breath on my cheek. I held you in my arms and you warmed me, and I recognized you at once. Our lights had always glow’n upon each other. You have always been in my orbit, and I in yours, and now I rejoice that our dance may continue.”

Constance let the last word linger in the silence. “That’s beautiful.”

“Sia’s favorite poet. She reminded me of it before she left.”

“I can see it. And it is very true. You were bright before you met her but now? Nyus, now you shine.”

Ananais reached across the gap between them and took Constance’s hand. They shared the berries and vines, their heads tilted back to watch the clouds scud across the vast sea of stars. Ananais knew that if she had any hope of surviving until Ceanan came back, she would have to find something to occupy her time. She needed a project, and _Silas Marner_ was more of a chore than anything. She needed something in which she could lose herself entirely. An immersive project.

“Stance?”

Constance had nearly fallen asleep, but she lifted her head. “Mm?”

Ananais weighed her next words carefully but decided there was no other option. 

“I’m going to write a book for Ceanan.”

Constance took a moment to process the information, and then she broke into a wide smile that revealed her teeth stained with berry juices.


	11. Chapter 11

Ananais asked for a day to herself in order to prepare for writing. She needed a story and characters, and she couldn’t do that with Constance hovering. Constance agreed to give her space and wished her luck before heading out for the day. She was off-shirt at Caesura, but she knew that if she stayed in the apartment she would be unable to avoid drifting toward the window and peeking to see what Ananais was up to. She only broke the solitude in order to wish her luck before she left.

After a brief internal debate, she decided she would have no better opportunity to take care of herself. She took a roundabout route to the _balineae_ she always used. There were two in the city that didn’t mind a Meallar attending, but the one she frequented was the more reputable of the two. The other, she always got the impression the employees made a quiet announcement whenever she was there. The other one was respectable.

When Constance arrived she signed her name and handed over her chit to be scanned. The attendee took down a few pieces of basic information, preferences and anything verboten, and escorted her down a wide corridor. Wide archways opened to either side, the entrances providing a semblance of privacy though sightlines between each separate basin were open and clear. The attendant led her to the fifth basin, directly in the center of the row, and she stepped inside to undress. In the room beside hers she saw two men. One was in the water while the other sat on the lip and rubbed his partner’s back. Both looked up as they recognized her alien nature, but she ignored them and hung her clothes on the rack.

The water was a perfect temperature as always, and she sighed with relief as she sank into it. Homes on Tauzi weren’t outfitted with bathing basins, allowing for the more spacious stalls. Constance knew that couples on Meallara didn’t use stalls for anything other than bathing. The Meallar sexual experience was unhidden and public, which was one reason she enjoyed the _balineae_ ’s policy that everything happened within sight of others. It wasn’t unusual for a Meallar to have three lovers at once, and there were many stories of women who kept a harem of ten men who were available at all times.

Such couplings were frowned upon by Tauzetti as amoral, and Constance couldn’t help but see it as nothing more than an interesting fetish. She came of age on Tauzi, so she fantasized about having one boy in the stall with her, being with him alone behind closed doors. It was extremely difficult for her to find partners who wanted her for more than her skin color. In the _balineae_ , however, she didn’t care why they came to her; she was just there for relief and release. She hooked her arms around the metal bars that extended from the side of the tub and bore her weight down on them. She lifted her butt and let the current from the gentle faucets just below the water’s surface lift her up. 

She closed her eyes as she drifted weightlessly, toes and breasts breaking the surface. She let her mind wander, the membrane sliding across her eyes beneath the lids. She saw herself as a lanky young woman, her star-streaked hair razored down to a fine dark fuzz so she wouldn’t be seen as a trollop. Due to her stretched torso and long arms, most who saw her assumed she was a Meallar boy. She didn’t mind them calling her coward for not being in the service; the names hurt less than what they would have called out if they knew she was a girl.

Her first fumblings were with a boy named Dorral. He was one of the other boys in the house where she lived, and he would often sleep with her in whatever box or underbed space the parents stuffed her in. When they were old enough to feel desire, she knew that he would see her as a person first and a Meallar second, so she chose him. She remembered the look in his eyes as the spray washed over his features, the awe and surprise as he pushed into her.

She moved her hands between her legs and opened her eyes. As the memory faded she saw a tall Tauzetti man standing at the entrance of her basin. He was nude and dripping from his own session, water still trailing down his chest. He was hairless from the neck down, and he held a towel to the side so Constance could see his arousal. He was a nice, average girth for a man his size, and she hadn’t come to the _balineae_ to be choosy. 

“Welcome,” she said.

He put aside his towel and Constance pushed her legs down so she was seated when he reached her. He put a hand on her knee and leaned forward, his penis brushing her thigh, and he brushed his cheek against hers as he moved his hand higher. Constance closed her eyes and wrapped her hand around his shaft. He gasped against the corner of her mouth and she turned her head to flicker her tongue against the empty space where his lips parted.

When he spoke, his words were textured with an accent slightly different than she was accustomed to hearing. “Thaenetel,” he said, identifying himself as a citizen of a nearby landmass. A traveler or tourist, then. He was also a foreigner to the city, although he had traveled a much shorter distance, and she felt more comfortable with him for that fact alone.

“Constance.”

He nodded and moved his tongue against her bottom lip. It smeared the berry juice she’d rubbed into it before leaving him, and the taste flooded her mouth as it was covered by his. Constance stroked him with her left hand, his hand firm between her thighs, and they both translated their pleasure through the kiss. She opened her eyes and looked to see if the two men beside her could be tempted to join them, but they were nowhere to be seen.

Thaenetel moved his hand to her hip without touching her sex, urging her to roll. She did as instructed, planted her knees on the slick tile, and wrapped her arms around the steel protrusions as he positioned himself behind her. She moved her feet apart and reached down between her legs to guide the bright pink head of his penis into her. She closed her eyes as he bit her neck.

“I’ve never had a blue piece before,” he growled as he pushed into her.

Constance resisted the urge to shove him off and start from scratch with someone else, but he was already inside of her. She clenched her teeth and tightened around him, squeezing his fingers tightly, bearing back against him in an effort to finish things as quickly as possible. She was an oddity in that nearly none of her lovers had ever been with a Meallar, and yet she had only been with Tauzetti. She’d only met her kind in passing, never brokering relationships that lasted long enough to lead to washing. She was becoming very bored of their glee at how “exotic” she was.

Thaenetel put a hand on her shoulder to brace himself, forcing her head down until her head was almost in the water. The water slapped between her abdomen and the side of the basin and she tightened her fists around the bars for leverage. One benefit of her otherness was that a Tauzetti male could not impregnate a Meallar female, and Constance was immune to the few sexual diseases that circulated through the Tauzi population every few framesets. 

Her partner finished, and Constance sank down into the water to let the flow wash away the evidence. He dipped his head in thanks before he turned and waded to the edge of the pool. She knew that he would share the story among his friends, how he had gotten a blue piece. She sank down until her breasts were submerged, only her head and shoulders above the water. 

As she floated, wondering if she should just consider the trip a bust and leave, the two men from the adjoining basin approached the edge of hers. They had made each other hard, their cocks stretching out toward her as they awaited her judgment. They looked tender enough, and the smaller one was averting his gaze but kept bringing his eyes back to meet hers. Her eyes, not focusing on her skin. She smiled and motioned for the men to join her.

#

That night Constance looked across the balcony and saw a handwritten sign propped up in Ananais’ window: “HELP.” She smiled, gathered her snack, and walked across to tap on the glass. Ananais let her in and sighed heavily as she took Constance’s armful of snacks and then helped her step down into the apartment.

“This was a foolish endeavor.”

“It’s the first day! You can’t give up so easily!”

Ananais picked up a sheaf of paper and held it out to her. Constance braced herself for it to be bad, setting her features to not give away her feelings as she scanned the first paragraph. Despite her preparations she found her brow furrowing and her bottom lip poking out. It started with an explanation of how to achieve a shopkeeper’s license in the Commerce ring, and the process with which one could begin to open a shop. It went into dizzying detail, and she lifted the front page to see more of the same on the following leaf. She looked up and saw Ananais watching her.

“Do you see?”

“Well. It’s... interesting.”

Ananais took the papers back. “No, it’s not. It is the very antithesis of interesting.”

“You just misstepped. Beginnings are difficult. Look, you’ve written thousands of books...”

“I’ve rewritten thousands of books. The work was already done, the words on the leaves waiting to be transcribed.”

Constance went to the bookshelf where her works in progress were stored. “You can still use them as a base. Look, how did these begin? ‘A screaming comes across the sky.’ See? It begins with action.” She replaced that book and took another. “‘Someone must have slandered Josef K for one morning without having done anything truly wrong, he was arrested.’ You must find out where the story you wish to tell begins. No minutia unless it is absolutely necessary to the understanding of the tale.”

“But how can I know where the story begins if I don’t know what the story is?” She sat, dejected, her hands against her temples. “I was hoping that the story would unearth itself if I simply began writing. I know nothing but books and the selling of books.”

Constance sat next to her. “You know much more. You just have to figure out what is there and etch it out. What about the stories you tell me of your customers? They are funny and poignant and sad. You can weave a tale, Ananais. And you’ve seen others do it enough that you’ve certainly picked up some tricks of how it is done.”

Ananais took a deep breath. “I’m just so uncertain.”

“You don’t have to write for everyone in the world. This is a book for Ceanan, and the story will be for her. So think of a story you want to tell her and then all you have to do is put it on paper.”

“Hm. All I need is a story.” She looked at the bookshelf again, smiled, and then met Constance’s gaze. “I think you may be onto something there, Stance.”

Constance perked up. “I’m happy I could help! Now we have some time before the suns set. Perhaps you would like to take a rest on the balcony with a friend you’ve been neglecting for a lover.”

Ananais laughed. “It is the least I can do.”

Constance gathered their things and let Ananais lead the way to the window. She knew that her friend’s mind was working overtime. As with Ceanan, Constance didn’t mind playing second-position in Ananais’ life. The book was important to her, and Constance was eager to see what she came up with.

#

After Constance called it a night, Ananais went back into her apartment and accessed the Haven network. She entered her ID and drummed her fingers on the edge of the panel as it loaded. She couldn’t for the life of her remember the name of the person she’d thought of as soon as Constance suggested usurping a story. She thought of Don Quixote’s tale and envisioned something similar. But she wouldn’t be able to find anything if she couldn’t remember the damned woman’s name.

She opened the files and skimmed through the alert archives. She could remember her parents speaking of-- no. Not her parents, because her father was off on Earth. Some man, then, speaking to her mother in a quiet whisper. And her mother hissing at him angrily. The only times she’d seen her mother angry was when they discussed the woman whose name now escaped Ananais so many years later. Larnetel? No. It was someone local, Ananlar.

Laranan. She eagerly typed the name into the search parameters, pausing to see if she could produce a family name. Center. Cantar. 

Centrella. She typed in the name and began a search. Seconds later it asked for her Haven ID and Password again, and she was logged into a section of private records available only to Tauzetti citizens. It was where they hid their embarrassing and potentially inflammatory articles. Remembering how furious her mother got whenever Laranan was brought up, she could certainly understand why the information was restricted.

Twenty framesets before Ananais was born, the war between the Amarim Coalition and the Vyrr forces reached Tauzi. Hostilities broached their system while the Tauzetti watched helplessly from the ground. They had the means to join the fray, but their leaders refused to take sides in a conflict which they knew nothing about. Amarim ships were the first to reach Tauzi and proceeded to blockade the planet. There was an uproar, but Amarim insisted they were only trying to protect the peaceful planet from being overtaken by the evil Vyrr.

Reluctantly the blockade was accepted. Its existence meant that Tauzi wouldn’t be called upon to fight, and the war would remain off their soil. For a time the Tauzi tried to simply ignore the ships looming in space above their heads. A new constellation of false stars traced a line through the sky, its shields burning so brightly that several stars were obscured. Holy protests were formed, since the presence of the Amarim blockade prevented Dark Days from being observed. Many people claimed the new lights in the sky prevented starlight from reaching them or their loved ones. Every unexpected death and, indeed, every death that occurred after the blockade was created, was blamed on the intruders.

The Amarim ignored their cries and indeed only became more invasive. They sent people down to the planet in order to gather “necessary supplies” to keep the blockade active. Soldiers raided homes and farms. Nothing could be done because the thieves were nameless, faceless, and off the planet before authorities could intervene. Five framesets after the first Amarim ship was reported in Tauzi’s orbit, a soldier named Tazeas acted as supervisor while his men loaded their ship full of one family’s harvest. The father pleaded with them to leave at least a little, because he had a whole family to feed. Tazeas ignored the man’s arguments but then seemed to reconsider. He pushed the frail man aside and tilted his head as he looked at the man’s daughter.

The encounter happened before the Amarim soldiers had learned Tau, so Tazeas spoke in his natural dialect when he pointed at the farmer’s eldest child. His intentions were clear, however: he was there to gather supplies for the soldiers stationed on the blockade, and they didn’t have nearly enough women. He motioned for her to join them. After a moment the girl stepped away from her sobbing mother and let Tazeas take her onto his vessel.

Moments later, while the engines of the ship were still blowing up dust, the cargo hatch opened again. The girl returned, her legs trembling under the weight of the heavy sacks she carried. Her dress was stained dark blue with the blood of the Amarim soldiers, and she strolled back into the farmhouse to put the sacks away. Behind her the Amarim ship lifted into the sky and accelerated until it was little more than a speck against the clouds.

The girl’s family went inside in confusion. The food was piled in the kitchen just inside the entrance, and they soon found their sister and daughter in the bathing room. She was washing the blood from her clothing with casual determination. She told them that something had to be done against the thieving bastards who were trying to destroy their planet. She told them she had merely taken the first steps. The girl’s name was Laranan Centrella, and she changed the course of Tauzi history that day using only a pair of clothing shears she’d had in her pocket.

Ananais smiled rereading the story. The news report, of course, merely stated the cold facts of the situation. Local Girl Attacks AmaCo Supply Run. But to anyone who remembered what came after, there was so much to be found between the lines. Finally someone had the strength to stand up to their usurpers! Someone had found the strength to say enough and raised a hand.

People like Ananais’ mother refused to call Laranan a hero. After spending so long appeasing the Amarim, to respond with violence was a despicable thing. Many in the government felt the same way. What was the harm in providing a little food for the people protecting the planet? Did it matter if the Amarim soldiers were coarse and crude? They knew not our ways, so they could hardly be blamed for their actions.

Laranan alone had the wherewithal to demand a change. She built a small guerilla army, mostly women who had seen food taken out of their children’s mouths. Ananais searched for some more restricted articles, stories that reported Laranan’s activities without appearing to honor or endorse what she was doing. By the time she was killed in an “unfortunate incident” at the Tower, she had established the chroniclers’ guild and forced the leaders of Tauzi to sit down with the Amarim counselors to create a solution that worked for everyone.

Ananais took out her pad and began to take notes, refreshing her memory as she skimmed the articles. She would find the unofficial reports and compare them to official recordings. She would dig through the lies and misinformation until she had the real story and she would write it all down in one place. She would tell the story of the woman who saved Tauzi from being decimated and, at the same time, she could reveal the lofty origins of Ceanan’s occupation.

Her gift to Ceanan would be telling the story of Laranan Centrella.


	12. Chapter 12

Ananais spent most of the night putting together a skeleton of story to build upon. She had several books open on the desk next to her so she could consult the way they began their stories. When she woke and sat down again she was daunted by the scope of the task she’d undertaken for herself. Eager for procrastination she went to her monitoring station and did something she hadn’t done in years: she looked for war reports. The last time she accessed them was right after her father died, and she wasn’t alone in her ignorance. Most Tauzetti ignored the war happening just a few hours away. She accessed the information feed and leaned forward to see if there were any new reports since Ceanan left. Vyrr forces were pestering Amarim compassionate ships, preventing them from resupplying. The Amarim Coalition was scrambling to provide security, but they were unwilling to leave their main fleet unprotected.

Ceanan was posted aboard the T-332pK, and Ananais did a term-search to see if it had factored in to any reports. It was only mentioned once, as one of the ships experiencing supply shortage. The commanders had instituted rationing on the affected ships until the Vyrr pests could be dealt with. Ananais wasn’t overly concerned; Ceanan had taken extra provisions in the event of a shortage. Amarim tended not to let Vyrr get away with their obnoxious little distractions for very long.

Ananais shut off the screen and went back to her table. The first few paragraphs of the story were already written. _“I take you back to a time when the aggressions between the Amarim Coalition and the Vyrr forces was but a rumor in the streets, before any of us were adversely affected by the presence of these meddling outsiders. I take you to a time when seeing someone with green skin was an oddity unknown on the streets of Sikaar Kakae. I take you to the time before Laranan Centrella set our planet on the course of peace which we now enjoy.”_

She supposed it was as simple a beginning as she could get. Laranan Centrella was known by every man, woman, and child on Tauzi. Most didn’t know the specifics, and she had discovered quite a few stories she’d never even heard of in the course of her research. It was because of her that Tauzetti citizens could ignore the war, could view the random influx of vacationing soldiers as little more than a nuisance. She prevented their world from being completely overrun and destroyed by someone else’s disagreement. Surely she deserved more than a passing recognition.

She picked up her pen, rolled it between her thumb and forefinger, and decided to write the book as if she was speaking to Ceanan. _It is because of Laranan’s bravery and self-sacrifice that you are safe. We do not want for food or shelter, and we have no need to fear destruction raining down on us from above. The Amarim and Vyrr attempted to crush us with no second thought, treading brutishly over our planet as if we were inconsequential. Laranan refused to accept that fact. The day she was chosen by Tazeas, most likely to be taken back to the front lines for life as a sexual plaything, Laranan decided the time had come._

_If no one else was going to take a stand, then it fell to her._

She turned away from the page and looked up the Amarim soldier who had been the Centrellas Army’s first casualty. Vit Tazeas Leyoa was quickly denounced by his commanders, who claimed that taking Tauzetti women for sexual slavery was certainly not an encouraged practice. They swore it would never happen again, and the Tauzi government - still impotent to face the Amarim’s superior firepower - meekly accepted the apology. Ruffled feathers smoothed over, but Laranan was unimpressed. She knew she was far from the first girl escorted off her family’s farm never to be seen again. Stories were whispered from family to family. Girls disappeared from the streets, and because they lacked the ability to fight back, the Amarim bastards were getting away with it.

Laranan had found her calling. Her father and brothers used a blade to till the soil, ripping up the solid ground in order to make something grow. She chose to do the same thing. She shaved the hair from her head and arms, affecting the look of a mythical warrior caste, and donned her father’s rough leathers he wore when breaking livestock. She called her movement Turned Soil in honor of all the farmers who had lost their livelihoods and their own flesh and blood to the bastard Amarim.

She was forced to move secretly at first, gaining followers from neighboring farms before she spread out into the city. She explained her goals to her people and then sent them out to the large cities to gather more fighters. Their targets were Amarim ships, the transports that would sit down at whatever farm looked prosperous from the sky and unroll their shopping lists. Laranan had her followers lying in wait at these camps. The Amarim never bothered to guard their ships - why bother when they were so obviously superior to those from whom they stole? - making it easy for the tribe of young guerillas to penetrate the ship defenses. They sabotaged the thrust drives so it would be impossible for the Amarim ships to leave the atmosphere. They unlatched cargo hold doors so they would fall open the second a ship left the ground. A few of the guerillas went too far and turned the ships into death traps, but Laranan didn’t feel much sorrow for the invading rapists.

Soon the attacks were so frequent that Amarim was reluctant to send more troops. Their soldiers still needed supplies, however, and the commanders of the army sent a delegation in the hopes they could shame the Tauzi government into doing something about their pests. The ambassador for the Tauzetti then did what many consider to be the deciding factor in winning the moment: he invited a delegation from the Vyrr forces to be present as well. He said that if they couldn’t come to a supply agreement with the Amarim Coalition that satisfied both parties, he was willing to hear a pitch from Vyrr. The first demand was that any woman who had been taken by Amarim soldiers would be returned immediately.

The Amarim couldn’t risk losing such a tactical supply point as Tauzi, and they certainly couldn’t let the Vyrr forces take it over. They capitulated to every demand. Women began reappearing after several days, returned to their families by Amarim soldiers and medics who were forced to duck thrown garbage and shouted abuse as they scurried back to their ships. The women wasted no time detailing their treatment at the hands of the aliens. The soldiers were bad, of course, but even worse were the kindly examiners who claimed they simply wanted a scientific sample of alien anatomy.

Eventually people realized where the revolution began. Everyone who had fought for Laranan’s cause credited her for taking the first step. People like Ananais’ mother called her traitor, rabble-rouser, dirt-kicker, and they protested when the ambassadors decided to honor her with a medal. The award was entirely honorary, a way of showing gratitude for what she had done. When she arrived in Sikaar Kakae for the presentation at the Tower, several Amarim soldiers began making a nuisance of themselves in the streets around the courtyard. Laranan was kept inside the building for her safety, or so it was said.

No one knows the whole truth of what happened, how the girl who had inspired so many and changed her planet’s history, ended up plummeting from a balcony. Everyone had their theories and began vociferously defending their idea of what happened almost as soon as her body hit the ground. Amarim soldiers were to blame. The Vyrr forces had been using her as a puppet and she had outlived her usefulness. The Tauzi government itself had been collaborating with the Amarim and disliked their scheme being dismantled.

Secretly Ananais feared the truth was much simpler and much more tragic. She believed that the farm girl who had only wanted to save her people was overwhelmed by the attention she was getting. She saw two alien forces who looked upon her like a devil, and she saw a government that was frightened of the power she wielded. The government’s official story was that she’d been put into that room as a security precaution. Ananais believed it. She believed Laranan looked out at the crowd of people gathered below her window, the Amarim forces trying to disrupt the proceedings and her own peers arguing over whether she should be lauded or vilified, and she realized she had torn her planet in two while trying to protect it.

Ananais believed that, in the end, Laranan Centrellas jumped. That was the story she would tell in the book, and she suddenly realized what an awful idea it was for a gift. “Here, my love. Enjoy a tragic story about rape, murder, and suicide.” She rubbed her cheeks with both hands and looked at the book in progress. She needed guidance. She needed... 

She turned around to look at the window. She stood and looked outside. Constance’s light was on, so Ananais stepped outside and crossed over to knock on the glass. Constance waved when she appeared and pushed the window up.

“ _Sunna_! I didn’t want to bother you if you were writing.”

“That’s why I’m here.” She crouched and arranged her skirts around her legs like a turned-up flower. “I can’t exist solely in my head. I keep second-guessing a contradicting myself. I take two steps forward and then shrink back into myself. The story is too big and I cannot bring myself to put it down on the page. I need your help.”

“What can I possibly do?”

“What do you know about Laranan Centrellas?”

Constance shrugged. “I heard the name, of course. I know she was a very important person.”

“Then you’re exactly who I need. Are you on shift today?”

“Yes, but I have a while before I have to go on. I’d be happy to help you.”

They crossed the balcony together and Ananais offered a hand to help Constance into her apartment. She picked up the first page she had written and handed it over. 

“I want you to make sure I’m not getting too bogged down in details, overthinking things. Or, the corollary, that I’m not oversimplifying things that require more depth. It will be a lot of work.”

“I don’t mind. I’m happy to help.” She sat down, smiling brightly as she scanned the page. “I’m very excited, in fact. Helping you write a new book, being the first person to ever read it, and I get to help with a gift for Ceanan. Thank you for the opportunity.”

“Don’t thank me just yet.” She sat down again, wet the nib of her pen, and sighed. “It was so much easier when I could simply copy down words someone else had written.”

Constance smiled. “Ceanan will see the effort you took for this, no matter what the story is. She will know how strongly she featured in your thoughts while she was away, and she will treasure this book. The story isn’t the important part, the reader is. The woman you’re writing it for is the only thing that matters. So just focus on her, Nyus, and the story will fall into place.”

Ananais looked down at the page in front of her. She took a deep breath and began to write.

“ _It was a dry season, the final time a transport from the Amarim Coalition landed on Byanan Centrellas’ farm. Two of his fields stood fallow, and what little he had managed to pull from the other three was gathered in crates next to the back door. The family shielded their eyes as the dust kicked up all around them, their expressions resigned as the green-skinned soldiers marched out of the back hatch of the ship. When Laranan finally joined the rest of her family, her father looked sharply at her._

_“So you have decided you’ve sat idle long enough, child?”_

_Little did he know that in just a few moments, Laranan would force the entire planet to stop sitting idle._ ”

Constance looked up when she read the dialogue. “Did he really say that?”

“According to some reports. Others say that Laranan was simply busy with chores and her father didn’t even notice she was delayed. But I feel like him asking the question--”

“Oh, yes, it’s very good! I liked it.”

Ananais smiled and bent over the page once more.


End file.
